


Among the Wildflowers and Lilies

by Callmetiny



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, And they both get it, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dead Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Dead Technoblade, Dead Wilbur Soot, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, No beta we die like mne, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade are Siblings, rightfully so, that's right it's Ghosty Bois Inc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmetiny/pseuds/Callmetiny
Summary: “Tubbo!” Tommy called. “Where are you?”Tubbo hollered back, still poking around on the first floor. And so Tommy wandered back down the hall, away from that eerie chill and that guitar propped up, somehow still in tune, against the wall.He didn’t hear the sound of the strings strumming behind him, didn’t hear that distantly familiar melody, as he walked away. He didn’t even think to listen for it.Why would he?______________In which Tommy comes back to his family’s old home five years after the fire, Tubbo at his side. He didn’t expect to find much, if he was being honest.He never imagined he’d find the ghosts of his dead family, still there after so long.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 129
Kudos: 696
Collections: MCYT Fic Rec





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of [The Channel Without A Name's](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChSciKtfmRO5YsjZ0MQYMcg) Ghosty Bois Inc AU. Title is from [Overgrown Garden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMMFZ3xQH-M) by Beetlebug (the one who wrote 'An Ode to L'Manburg'). If you haven't already, go check both of them out! I'm here to provide (mostly) fluff for this angst-ridden fandom, and I was largely inspired by both of their works!
> 
> Dialogue that's fully italicized is part of a flashback. If it's not clear the way I've written it, please don't hesitate to let me know. Also,,,, ao3 can be weird about spacing with mixed italics stuff, so please excuse any formatting weirdness from that—as far as I know, there's no way to fix it :D 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Side note: this work of fiction is based on CC's personas on the Dream SMP (I wrote Ghost!Wilbur more like early c!Wilbur, not Ghostbur). If any creator expresses discomfort with this fic or anything like it, I will not hesitate to take it down.

Tommy wandered down the hallway. 

He was bigger than he’d been the last time he was here. Now it felt small in comparison, almost claustrophobic. If he tried, he figured he could cross the whole hall in one stride, or maybe, if he reached up, he could put his palm flat against the ceiling—he wasn’t sure, and yet the walls still seemed to loom in from every side regardless. It was unnerving, in a way.

The wallpaper was almost the same, though it seemed enough of the old paper had been lost that they’d had to find one to match and make do. The window at the end had the same iron frame, the sunlight filtering from the midafternoon sun. The rug under his feet was even the same color. How on earth did Gran find another one of those ugly things?

It was all different, but it was all somehow the same. He didn’t know if it was distressing or disorienting. Or both. Like walking through his memories all over again, except everything was shifted to the left a couple centimeters.

Yeah, it was weird.

“ _D_ _o you want to hear a song, Tommy?_ ” 

A voice popped up in his head, one that was more recent than the rest, yet still old—it was from one of the last times he’d been in this house, before the fire had come and gone and taken his family with it.

Tommy had been around ten at the time. At the voice, he’d stumbled, his eyes focused up as he had walked down the hall. A quick recovery—Tommy had always been sturdy, even as a little kid—and then his eyes had gone right back up again, had watched Wilbur’s as they'd twinkled in the low light. _"W_ _hat kind of song?_ ” he’d asked.

_“A fun one. You’ll like it, I promise.”_

And, because younger Tommy had had a bone to pick with everything he’d ever come across, he’d crossed his arms over his chest and stopped in the middle of the hallway. _“That sounds stupid.”_

_“‘Stupid?’ Where’d you learn that word?"_ Wilbur said. Phil would’ve been mad, Tommy later realized, if he’d heard Tommy tossing that word around like he had been. If only he could hear the mouth on him now.

_“Techno said I’m not allowed to say the f-word. He said to say ‘stupid’ instead,_ ” he’d said. “ _B_ _ut… he also said not to tell you or Uncle Phil he said that.”_

Wilbur’s face had gone through about five emotions in just as many seconds as he’d stood there, clogging up the hallway, ten-year-old Tommy bouncing on his heels by his side. Then, he’d shrugged, muttering something like _"_ _not my problem”_ under his breath, and they'd gone ambling along towards that familiar wrought-iron window again. Towards the end of the same hallway Tommy now walked down.

The hallway felt even shorter now, as Tommy followed it to the end. His hand followed the swirls in the new wallpaper until they hit the side of the doorframe, sliding up to grip the wood so he could swing into the doorway. The last door on the right had been Wilbur’s, if he remembered correctly.

“ _Do you even know how to play that thing?_ _"_ he'd asked, before, as Wilbur showed off his old guitar.

The guitar was one of the only things that escaped the fire. Techno’s sword, Phil’s old hat, and Wilbur’s guitar were, now, all that remained of their old bedrooms; most everything else had been swallowed up by the flames, only seen again as the ash that’d been swept out after. The guitar now sat in the corner, propped up against the wall in Wilbur’s old room, as if Wilbur had just set it down for a moment and never came back to finish the song. Everything else in there was new, yet familiar, just like the hallways outside—Gran, it seemed, had tried to get it all as close to the real deal as possible, and if Tommy’s memories were correct, she’d done a good job. Eerily so.

“ _I_ _thought you didn’t want to hear a song?"_ Wilbur had teased, propping the guitar in his lap as he’d sunk onto his old bed. The bed had been old, the kind that creaked and moaned with every movement, and it’d done just that as Tommy had sat down next to him just after.

_“I didn’t know it was a_ cool _song with a guitar!”_ Tommy had said, bouncing a little extra just to hear the bed complain. Now, as he sat down on the new bed, he learned that that was one thing Gran hadn’t been able to replicate.

_“I_ said _it was fun.”_ Wilbur had frowned. “ _Do you not trust me, Tommy?”_

_“Mum says her books are fun, but they’re just boring,”_ Tommy had said, leaning on Wilbur’s arm, excited just to be in his presence. Wilbur had been so absurdly tall that, when they were sitting down like that, his shoulder had been right around where Tommy’s head had been, his arm right within grabbing distance for Tommy’s grubby little hands. _“Tubbo likes them, but I think they’re stupid!”_ Tommy’s eyes had gone wide. _“Oh! Did I tell you about Tubbo?”_

A snort. _"_ _Techno teach you that one, too?”_

_“What? No! Tubbo’s my friend, I’d never call him a bad word._ ” Tommy would defend Tubbo just the same today, he realized, smiling. _"_ _His real name’s Toby, but he can’t write very well, and he spelled it wrong in class at the beginning of the year, and everyone was making fun of him, so I call him Tubbo now. He likes it, I promise.”_

Wilbur’s nose had wrinkled, one hand adjusting his glasses as they slipped right down his nose with it. “ _Oh, does he now?”_ he’d asked.

“ _Yeah, Tubbo’s great like that! And he can’t read very well either, so I like to read to him ‘cause he says it helps, but we ran out of books so I borrow mum’s, only they’re really boring.”_

Wilbur had laughed, a warm sound fitting for that warm afternoon.

Tommy didn’t remember exactly how the memory went after that. They’d fiddled around on Wilbur’s guitar for a while as the conversation dissolved into Tommy ranting about Tubbo, Wilbur trying to show him how to play. Tommy, of course, hadn’t listened; he’d strummed at random strings on the poor instrument and tried to get them out of tune, until Phil had called them down for dinner. His fingers had hurt a little bit from playing, and he used it as an excuse to not use a fork, blaming Wilbur when Phil made a funny face about it. But Tommy’s mum had been out for the night, and Wilbur didn’t want to use a fork either, so they all followed suit and ate with their hands. Even Phil had joined in, with a laugh and everything.

Tommy had blabbed about Tubbo for most of dinner, even as Phil tried to get him to chew with his mouth closed. Every time conversation stopped, Tommy would start with Tubbo, Tubbo, did you know Tubbo did this or did you know Tubbo could do that? It’d been close to the start of their friendship, and he’d wanted nothing more than for his family to think of Tubbo like he did. It’d been one of the last times he’d eaten together with them, one of the last times she’d stepped foot in the house before the fire.

Now, he turned away from Wilbur’s guitar, from where his fingers played with the strings as he thought, and fixed his bag on his shoulder. And despite himself, he shivered; there was a draft in the room. He didn’t remember it from when he was a kid—Wilbur had chosen the bedroom with a lot of sunlight, so his room had usually been hot—but it wasn't too out of the ordinary. They’d had to reconstruct most of the room. 

That, or it was just the room creeping Tommy out, goosebumps popping up along his arms as the uncanny familiarities of the room dawned on him one-by-one.

He didn’t put much thought into it.

Instead, he just turned from the room and went back into the hall, shutting the door a bit softer than he usually would on his way out. The whole floor was creepy in an unfamiliar kind of way, right on the edge of what Tommy had been expecting, but not quite exactly as he’d remembered it to be. It was like a dollhouse replica of the house he’d built in his memories, a bit too small and not quite right in all the ways that mattered.

So, the second floor would be a no-go, for now, he figured. 

With that, as he retreated from the second floor and back towards the main staircase, he shook the old memories from his head, turning his attention back to the present. 

“Tubbo!” Tommy called. “Where are you?” The house was bigger than it had any right to be—it was why Gran had bothered fixing it up after the fire, after all.

Tubbo hollered back, still poking around on the first floor. And so Tommy wandered back down the hall, away from that eerie chill and that guitar propped up, somehow still in tune, against the wall.

He didn’t hear the sound of the strings strumming behind him, didn’t hear that distantly familiar melody, as he walked away. He didn’t even think to listen for it.

Why would he?

___________

“Dad, he still calls him Tubbo,” Wilbur said, strumming a quiet chord. It’d taken him a while, but he’d gotten the pattern down. Tapping would be a while yet, though that’d never stopped Wilbur from complaining about it—it was hard for them to interact with much in their current state, something Wilbur seemed he’d never forgive the powers-that-be for instilling upon them. Still, there usually wasn’t much else to do but try. And, after about a week or so of trying, Wilbur had deemed the piano on the third floor too out of tune to be playable. So, ghostly guitar playing it was.

Phil drifted towards the door, reopened now that Wilbur had had his way with it. Thumps fell from out in the hallway as Tommy, his steps just as heavy on his heels as they’d always been, made his way back down the hall. “He’s still a kid, Will.”

“ _Tubbo._ The poor kid’s got a perfectly normal name, and he’s walking around calling him _Tubbo._ ” Wilbur tried another chord, frowning when his fingers decided to faze through the last string. He looked up, fingers on the frets still as he tried the chord again. “I’m surprised they’re still friends. I’d drop a kid if he called me something like that.”

“Alright, Will. Ease off him.”

“What? It’s not like he can hear me!” Wilbur said, raising his voice. 

“What’re you-”

Phil jumped as Wilbur started shouting, jumping up from where he’d been fiddling with the guitar and banging on the walls as best as he could manage (which, admittedly, wasn’t very well). “Children! Children come get me! _Children! Whoooooo!”_ He pulled away, meeting his dad’s tired gaze. “Look, nothing.”

Phil sighed. Wilbur had been fairly quiet (for him, at least) when Tommy had insisted on assessing the second floor by himself as his first course of action in the house. Tommy hadn’t even put his bag down, just ditched Tubbo to run upstairs and seemed to instantly regret it. Wilbur had floated there at Phil’s side, just watching, as Tommy had run his hands over the replica dresser and sank onto the new, nearly silent, bed. And Wilbur had been silent.

Now, it seemed it was all coming out in one go. Phil didn’t know why he hadn’t expected it.

And now the two of them were just left there, floating around in the chill air of Wilbur’s old bedroom, in Tommy’s wake. Those thirty-or-so seconds of Tommy’s presence up here were enough to perk Wilbur up like this, it seemed, to the point that he was backing to yelling and shouting about, full of an energy Phil hadn’t seen in him in a long time.

Phil smiled, as Wilbur went on blabbing about Tubbo’s awful nickname. He laughed, as Wilbur turned his insults to Tommy, as Wilbur’s curiosity about this ‘Tubbo’ finally got the better of him and he goaded Phil downstairs to check it out.

And he wondered, now, if these two kids could be good for the three of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple notes before you go (if you'll have me):
> 
> Phil is Tommy's uncle in this, not his dad. Techno and Wilbur are adopted siblings with Phil as their dad, Tommy's the cousin that was basically absorbed in anyways. Wanted to clarify, as it's not super clear in this chapter!
> 
> On a bit more serious note, I don't intend to baby Tubbo for his dyslexia. It's a big problem with ND ccs in general but especially Tubbo :( I wrote it as a friend helping out a friend, just from a kid's perspective, based off interactions with my younger sibling with speech problems,,, not a 1:1 comparison, but that's the inspiration! I only brought it up as a realistic reason for the name 'Tubbo'—you'll see me try to explain 'Techno' later on lmao.
> 
> Sorry for the long note, but I wanted to make sure some stuff was clear! Hope you enjoyed!!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Tommy and Tubbo and some ghosts being quirky ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ what can I say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!!! Updating a day early because I'm moving tomorrow (woooo), and I'd rather do this than pack right now. You all will benefit from my suffering, I hope :D 
> 
> This chapter's a bit longer than the first ("a bit" being around 800 words because I have no self-restraint), so it has a couple more POV changes. Let me know if they're confusing at all!! I don't like to label whose POV is whose, but I'd be more than happy to for clarity's sake.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!!

“I’m not going back up there,” Tommy announced as he came back downstairs, his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s all… creepy and shit.” 

Or at least that was the easy way to describe the utter _uneasiness_ that came over him in Wilbur’s old room. Given a million words, Tommy still didn’t think he could explain, though. So, ‘creepy and shit,’ it was.

He rounded a corner to find Tubbo sitting on the floor, trying to get the TV to work—Tubbo had brought his Switch, with Animal Crossing loaded up and everything, and he’d expected the old tube TV to be able to handle it. Tubbo didn’t even look up at the sound of Tommy’s voice, focused intently on figuring out the white, red, and yellow wires tangled up in his lap. “Creepy? How’s it creepy?”

Tommy frowned. “Trust me, Tubbo, it is.”

“That’s not a very good explanation, you know.”

“Well- shut up,” Tommy said with a huff, stopping and standing in place. He didn’t owe Tubbo, of all people, an explanation—and that was, of course, assuming that there was an explanation. Which there was not. And so Tommy just stood there for a moment, not sure how to retort to Tubbo's words, his frown getting deeper.

Until, in due time, he finished his pause for dramatic effect. And he took one step forward.

And Tubbo piped up again.

“I just noticed,” Tubbo started, “but you step really, really loudly. I could hear you all the way down here, through the floor.” Still, he hadn’t even looked up. Instead, he tried to jam a cable into the wrong place, grumbling when it didn’t fit. “You- jesus christ, you were stomping all over the place.”

“What the hell, Tubbo?”

“Look at yourself! You’re doing it now!” Tubbo looked up, at long last, and laughed as Tommy stalked across the room.

Tommy stopped in place again. “That’s- now you’re making fun of the way I _walk_?” he asked. “What the fuck. What the-”

“No, but wait, wait, hear me out-”

“The house is fucking old, that’s what you should be making fun of,” Tommy said, taking exactly one step forward (oh, he counted, just to spite Tubbo) and flopping onto the couch. It would’ve worked too, if not for the cloud of dust that popped up, sending him rolling away and onto the carpet with an _oomph_ and, of course, a resounding _thud_. It also would’ve been graceful, if Tommy perhaps possessed a bit more grace. 

Tubbo laughed at him. Again.

“Did you figure it out yet?” Tommy asked, trying to change the topic.

Tubbo’s eyes narrowed at the incomprehensible pile of cords in front of him. He blinked, once, twice, before his eyes just went blank altogether. “I have no idea, actually,” he said.

At that, he yanked all of the wires free, holding onto them for a moment before dropping them onto the rug and looking back at Tommy.

Tommy stared at the pile of wires in shock. “That’s- that was kind of a dumb thing to do, Tubbo.” Here he’d thought Tubbo was the tech part of this whole operation. It seemed Tubbo was proving him wrong on that bit, though.

“I don’t know why I bothered trying in the first place, if I’m being honest," Tubbo said. "There was no way any of that was going to-”

“You chose to bring up the way I walk, of all things,” Tommy interrupted. Tubbo just blinked at him—oh, this time it was Tubbo’s turn to act all shocked—with a slightly miffed expression on his face. Tommy stifled his smile. “I’m actually quite sensitive about it, you know.”

“You _do_ stomp,” Tubbo said. “You’re a- an angry walker.”

Tommy grumbled, and once again, Tubbo laughed at his expense.

It was true, though, that Tubbo’s efforts on the TV setup were pretty useless. Despite Tommy’s mum’s best efforts, the power wouldn’t be back on until tomorrow—benefits of spending the summer in the countryside, apparently, included country-speed services. That, and awful signal.

And so they sat there and messed around on the Switch, instead. Tubbo gave up on the TV and grabbed his Switch from the floor, then plopped himself down next to Tommy, the two of them leaning against the dusty couch side-by-side. Sure, Animal Crossing wasn’t Tommy’s kind of game, but he propped his feet up on the dusty old rug and watched without complaints.

They deserved the break, anyway. It’d been a tiring day, what with the long car ride and everything. And, though Tommy loathed to admit it, the day had been emotionally taxing too—he hadn’t been back to the house since the fire, five long years ago, and the memories were coming back stronger than ever now, held back only to come tumbling out given the slightest opportunity.

And they were weird memories, too. They weren’t even ones he’d _thought_ he’d hold onto after all this time—they were dumb, mundane memories that held no real significance. He hadn’t, so far, been able to remember meeting his cousins, and yet he could remember fighting over what movie they were going to watch one night, just from glancing at the old TV in front of him.

It’d been _Cinderella_ , if he remembered correctly.

 _“The plot could be better,"_ Techno had tried, when they’d sat down to watch it, but by that point, Phil had already shoved the VHS into the old player. There’d been three bigshot YouTubers living in the house at the time, and yet they’d been watching a VHS tape—it’d been absurd then, and it was absurd now, as Tommy remembered it.

“ _I_ _haven’t seen it in forever.”_ Wilbur had plopped down next to Tommy, sandwiching him between him and Techno. " _C_ _’mon, it’ll be fun.”_

 _“That’s the spirit, Will,”_ Phil had said. Then, he’d plopped himself down next to Tommy and basically held Tommy down through the course of the movie as though it were nothing. _Cinderella_ was still a dumb movie, in Tommy’s opinion—not out of sexism (of course not) but because the story just made no sense. Still, he'd admit that he enjoyed thinking about that time again.

That old TV was one of the things that hadn’t been replaced. The big wooden cabinets around it had been shuffled out and replaced, though as with the sofas, it didn’t seem to be because they’d been burned in the fire—it seemed to be more of just Gran doing things because Gran felt like it.

The two changes were slight, but they were somehow just enough to put Tommy at ease down here. Where Wilbur’s room had settled somewhere right in the deepest divot of the uncanny valley, this room felt better. The rug was similar, but not the same, and so were a lot of other pieces—just enough to draw out the comfortable memories without the bad connotations that came with them.

It felt different in a good way, to put it simply.

It was enough, as he sat there and watched Tubbo play Animal Crossing, to make him smile just slightly. And, well, if Tubbo noticed, he didn’t say anything.

So they went on as they normally did: Tommy commentated as Tubbo played, the two of them slouched against the couch, relaxing while the hours wore on past.

_____________

Tubbo hadn’t been sure what to expect from the house, if he was being honest.

Tommy had been nervous about it for weeks. Even if it hadn’t been obvious, at least to Tubbo, Tommy had outright told him as soon as their mums had agreed and made the trip a real possibility. Tommy hadn’t explained why, though—despite Tubbo’s complaints, he’d only told him the basics: that he hadn’t been back since his late cousins and uncle had lived there, around five years ago, and that half of the place had burned down at some point. Anything else was under wraps. Tubbo decided not to push it.

The house was nice. It was big. Kind of creepy too, though Tubbo figured that was just from the years of near-neglect. When they’d arrived, he’d taken a moment to just stare at it in wonder, trailing behind Tommy as they hefted their bags up the front walk.

As soon as they’d walked through the front door, though, Tubbo could tell that something was off. Especially with Tommy. 

Tommy had, however, brushed off Tubbo’s concerns and immediately made his way upstairs, firmly instructing Tubbo to stay downstairs. Not sure what else to do, Tubbo had just sat down in front of the TV and gotten to work. He hadn’t dwelled too much on whatever “creepy” things lurked upstairs, when Tommy came back down and said things were as such—in fact, Tubbo chose not to dwell on much of anything about the house, even as his instincts told him that there was something very, _very_ strange about whatever was going on. 

It was probably nothing to worry about. 

And if it was? 

Well, then they’d sort it out when they had to. For now, not dwelling on the house seemed to be the best way to go for the both of them, and so that was what Tubbo would do.

That was why he smiled as he and Tommy migrated up to the couch as they played Animal Crossing, Tommy complaining about his back like an ornery old man. The couch, for some reason, made the creepiness of the house fade away just a bit. Up there, it was just him and Tommy, a little moment in time where they could relax and let the background fade away, just sit there and not wonder what in the world made the place feel so, so _off_. Time went by in his Animal Crossing world, just as time went by in that moment, but they ignored it. The rest of the world fell out of focus as Tubbo played and Tommy commentated.

“What the fuck?” Tommy asked, eyes still on the Switch in Tubbo’s hands. “Why is there a camel?” He’d been watching Tubbo play for just around an hour now, seemingly not sure what else to do with himself, and he somehow still didn’t understand the point of it. “That’s not one of _yours_ , is it?”

“No, she sells rugs,” Tubbo said, quite simply. He paused for a moment to think. “I should get some, actually. She doesn’t come by too often.”

“Why do you need rugs?”

“For my house, of course!”

The sun had set a little while ago, the only lights coming from the glow of the Switch’s screen and the slight shine of the moon through the windows. The house seemed to loom around them if he took his eyes off the screen for too long, their phones since lost somewhere in the darkness. They were nearly isolated in the dark, yes, but Tubbo didn’t mind too much.

“This game is dumb,” Tommy said. 

Despite his complaints, Tommy stuck around too. The house felt alright, for now. Distantly, though, Tubbo knew that wasn’t quite true—that there was something off about the place, something they were all just ignoring for now. In that moment, though, it was alright.

__________

Wilbur floated by, his eyes moving to stay on the screen. “This is _the_ Tubbo?” He frowned. 

He’d been too busy upstairs to get an introduction, floating down after Tommy left and his interest eventually got the better of him. Now, he was hanging around as Tommy and Tubbo played the newest version of Animal Crossing. Truly, it was a timeless game, and though it was mostly the same as it’d always been, the graphics were much better than they’d been in Wilbur’s day. So he floated there, watching with idle interest.

Neither of the two boys moved, not so much as twitching in response to his words. Of course, they couldn’t hear him. Instead, Tommy just slouched a bit more against the couch—goodness, his posture was awful—as his droopy eyes watched Tubbo’s character dig up a fossil.

“Why can’t you just sell the fucking thing?” Tommy asked.

Tubbo didn’t even blink—Tommy had been pestering him about every single mechanic of the game since they’d sat down, and he appeared to be immune to it by this point. “I get more bells if Blathers looks at it.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Well, why not?”

“He’s an owl, what does he know?”

Tubbo shrugged it off, continuing to dilly-dallying about his island with a shovel in hand, only stopping to dig up fossils if they were in the way of the flower garden he was carving out of the landscape. It was, Wilbur had quickly learned, one of the many projects Tubbo was working on on his island.

“He’s not very good at this game,” Techno had stumbled (figuratively, always figuratively), into the room a couple minutes ago, his interest won over just as Wilbur’s had been. He’d been trying to avoid the two boys since their arrival, but it seemed his boredom had finally won out, just as Wilbur’s had.

Meanwhile, Phil tried to pretend he was sitting on the couch, his two sons floating nonchalantly overhead. But where Phil kept a lazy focus, eyes settling on Tommy and Tubbo with a melancholic sort of smile on his face, Techno was laser-focused on the game in Tubbo’s hands, frowning deeply.

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Wilbur said, floating right in front of Techno’s gaze, then laughing as Techno waved him away. “I don’t think you can be ‘good’ at Animal Crossing.”

Techno rolled his eyes. “He could at least be efficient.”

“He does have a house to pay off,” Phil said, his eyes finally drifting down to the screen as Tubbo’s character ran amuck. “Just wait until he has kids, that’s when the costs rack up.”

“Exactly,” Techno said.

Wilbur scoffed. “Just let the kid have his little furry town, Techno.”

Phil raised an eyebrow. “Furry town?”

“Yeah, it's got the animals and shit. It's a furry town.” Wilbur shrugged. He said what he’d said. "What else should I call it?"

No response.

Well.

Until, as if the game itself was protesting to Wilbur's words, the Switch’s screen flickered out, the ‘no battery’ icon popping up on its own where the game had once been. Away went Tubbo's little furry town, replaced with nothing but a black screen.

“Oh,” Tubbo said, setting the Switch down in his lap. He blinked, once, twice, before turning to Tommy. “I guess it’s dead.”

And, just like that, the room was dark.

Tommy frowned. It was just barely visible in the moonlight shining through the windows. “Great,” he said.

“Techno, you killed the poor boy’s Switch,” Phil said, eyeing the Switch with a slight frown. He smiled right after, though, as Tommy blinked the sleepiness from his eyes, pretending to be uninterested as he talked with Tubbo about the game in the dark. Tommy and Tubbo were certainly entertaining so far, that was for sure.

Techno floated up, slowly, until he was hovering a bit above the boys’ heads. “My bad,” he said. As if he hadn’t fiddled with it every moment Tommy and Tubbo hadn’t had their hands on it throughout the afternoon. The second the two of them had left it to eat dinner, Techno had poked and prodded at it unceasingly, refusing to let up—just enough to kill the battery.

“We shouldn’t mess with their stuff, if we can help it,” Phil said.

Wilbur couldn’t help but remember the toaster incident—he and Techno had figured out how to control the thing, and, through their own sheer will and some extra ghost shit, blew it up before the end of the day. Phil hadn’t seemed to see it coming, somehow.

The fire hadn’t been bad, but it’d still Wilbur feeling _off_ for a couple of days, until their Gran had scrubbed the scorch marks off the wall. None of them had touched the new toaster, and he didn’t think they were going to. So, they’d long-since learned not to fiddle with things that shouldn’t be fiddled with—the Switch, however, fell somewhere in between, not quite flammable enough to be considered untouchable but not quite familiar enough to be considered touchable. It was a grey area, and Techno had certainly tried to push it the moment Tommy and Tubbo had allowed him the chance.

Even now, Techno pushed it. “They can touch _our s_ tuff, though,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Phil, once again, sighed. “They won’t kill our stuff.”

“Will we kill them?” Wilbur asked.

“Don’t think so.”

Techno huffed, his face expressionless. “Well, there go my plans for the night.”

Wilbur bopped Techno upside the head at that, earning a nice and steady frown. It was a normal occurrence, and Techno had long-since learned to ignore Wilbur about it, but hey, that wasn’t going to stop Wilbur from trying it. So he bopped his brother upside the head, affectionately of course, and they both hid their smiles at it as Techno floated away with a grumble. 

“I give the Switch twenty-four hours,” Wilbur said, as Techno went out of hearing range.

Phil smiled back. “Eh, I say twelve.”

And, with that, their introduction to these two new boys was finished. Wilbur lingered about as Tommy and Tubbo talked, listening idly as Phil eventually floated off, his interest still keeping him stuck to their side. Techno stayed gone—he was back to trying to ignore their new housemates, and this time he seemed intent on lasting a bit longer. The house was as dark as it'd mostly been for a while, the walls still fairly quiet. But now there were two newbies lingering about, and they seemed as though they were here to stay.

They were here to stay.

Wilbur smiled to himself, as the time went on by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy!!! Hope you enjoyed round two out of.... honestly no idea how long this fic will be. I have 60k written up for you guys (and none of it is divided into chapters T_T), so as long as I can edit within the week this fic will keep going :D 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed meeting Tubbo! He's a bit hard to write for me, just because he's not a character type I'm as used to writing, but I think I did alright!!! Let me know all your thoughts below :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur has some fun. Oh, and there's a bit of *kind of sad stuff* at the end, just mind the gap :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...... that finale, right? When I tell you I was happy,,, that's an understatement. I squealed.
> 
> Anyways, I realize we STILL haven't seen much of Techno in this story, but that's what next chapter's for. Thing is: I write him as a very... introspective kinda guy, so he just didn't mesh well with these first couple chapters. For now, enjoy more Wilbur! Woot woot!

Wilbur wanted to mess with Tommy and Tubbo. 

Just a bit, only a bit.

He hadn’t had anyone to haunt, besides his old Gran, in a while—so, really, could you blame him? And with the power out, and all the wind outside shaking the house, and the two boys practically lying there in wait for him? It was _perfect_. 

To make it even better: Techno and Phil were somewhere else, content to leave the two boys alone now that they were finally getting ready for bed. Wilbur figured he could be a loving and supportive cousin some other time, but right now, he was going to go right ahead and take this opportunity as it waited, just sitting there right in front of him. He’d be a fool not to, really.

He hadn’t even started up yet, and both kids sounded scared half out of their minds. Maybe he was just used to the darkness, or maybe it was just the shake of the house that came with age, or maybe Tommy and Tubbo were just a lot more superstitious than he’d pegged them to be. Any combination of the three worked; regardless, Tommy and Tubbo sat there in the dark, their faces illuminated by the moon as they jerked at every creak, at every shake of the windows in their panes. 

Wilbur almost felt bad.

Keyword being _almost_.

“It’s, uh, pretty windy outside, isn’t it?” Tubbo asked, his voice low in the dark. He and Tommy had each taken one of the two couches, the throw blankets tossed over them to keep them warm as they tried to get to sleep for the night.

Tommy’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “Yeah, I guess.”

“The house is- it’s not going to fall over, is it?”

Tommy looked up, as if taking stock of the ceiling. Then, as if he hadn’t just looked up to check, he looked back down and said, “Tubbo, I’m not going to lie, I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Wilbur frowned. “Yeah, and where’s your expertise, Tommy,” he said. If they could’ve heard him, Wilbur would’ve popped in and made Tommy apologize. Tubbo didn’t seem to mind the near-constant teasing—tied in with their Animal Crossing gameplay and Tommy’s comments through the course of _that_ , this was a normal occurrence. And it wasn't like Tubbo didn’t bite back, from time to time. 

Still, it was certainly a far cry from the last time Wilbur had heard Tommy talk about Tubbo, from how Tommy had seemed to idolize his first real friend and talked about him whenever given the chance. So yes, Wilbur would’ve chewed Tommy out.

Luckily, though, this was one of the occasions where Tubbo stood up for himself. “The house is old, there was a fire. It could fall over,” he reasoned, sitting up straight so he could stare Tommy down. It was funny, when Tommy was so obviously taller than Tubbo.

Wilbur didn’t know much about tornadoes, but it seemed like Tubbo expected one to plop in and rip the roof right off their heads right then and there, no questions asked. If that was a thing tornadoes did. He’d seen old videos of them ripping roofs off of houses, taking buildings up until only the foundation was left, and sending bricks roaring through the air—most likely, tornadoes were capable of it, but Wilbur highly doubted that there was a tornado of that caliber about to descend right on top of them at that moment.

Tommy frowned. “Oh, you’re one to talk, Mr. ‘oh, I think I need _rugs_ for my little house in my town, oh I don’t need to _pay off my house_.’”

“There’s no interest rate on it!” Tubbo said. “And what does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re in debt, Tubbo. Don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to people who can’t manage their money.”

Tubbo frowned, and so the two of them just sat there and frowned at each other from their separate couches.

Then, they were laughing.

Tubbo started first, only managing to keep his frown for a moment before cracking up and giggling into the darkness. Tommy laughed as well, his laugh just as loud and obnoxious as always—though Wilbur would admit that it’d grown on him since Tommy was an annoying little kid.

The house still shook and the wind still slammed against the house, but Tommy and Tubbo just drowned it out with their laughter.

When they managed to catch their breath, Tommy let out a huff of air. “That was kind of weird, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was,” Tubbo said.

With that, Tommy pulled out his phone to check the time, the blue light making him squint harshly in the darkness, garnering a chuckle from Tubbo’s direction. It was almost midnight, not that time mattered much to Wilbur. It mattered to the children, though—it had Tommy slouching further into the couch, Tubbo almost copying him as he slid down his own couch.

“Do you want to sleep down here?” Tommy asked. “So you’re not scared, I mean.”

Wilbur, having seen Tommy’s brief foray into the second floor earlier that day, highly doubted that that was the sole reason for it.

Regardless, Tubbo nodded.

Wilbur took that as his cue. He couldn’t interact with much without being in angry poltergeist mode—which, having seen it happen a couple times in Phil and Techno, was a tradeoff he was not very willing to make—but he wreaked havoc in his own way, starting small. 

When the wind blew, he would bang on the wall. When the boys tried to find their pillows, phone flashlights lighting up the living room, Wilbur would tug their blankets away into the shadows. When Tubbo went into the kitchen for a drink, Wilbur pulled up the rug, tugged at the edges of the cupboards, and traced his cold, ghostly fingers along his skin. He laughed through it all, even as Tubbo retreated from the kitchen with an extra pep in his step, his skin paler than before. 

“Tubbo? Is something wrong?” Tommy asked, as Tubbo curled up on one end of his couch. “You look all- all weird.”

“I think this place is haunted.”

Well, that was fast.

Wilbur laughed louder, a booming sound like thunder echoing through the house in response. Tubbo jumped and looked up, glancing around with a hurried look in his eyes. It was a bit mean to do all this, sure, but it was ultimately harmless, just enough to bring Wilbur laughter and scare the shit out of Tubbo.

Whatever Tubbo had heard, though—had he heard Wilbur laughing? Was that what that was?—Tommy seemed oblivious to. Instead, he just frowned deeper at Tubbo, his eyebrows creasing just enough to cast a shadow over his face. “Haunted? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“The cabinets were shaking,” Tubbo said. “And it got really, really cold when I was in the kitchen, and you said your cousins died when they lived here, right? I think it’s haunted, I think it’s them.”

“My cousins and my uncle,” Tommy corrected.

Tubbo went on as if Tommy hadn’t even opened his mouth. “And didn’t you just hear that?” he said, jerking his head around. “I swear I heard someone laughing at me, I swear it, Tommy-”

Wilbur stopped, staring. So Tubbo _had_ heard him. He was more superstitious than Wilbur had thought, apparently.

Tommy frowned. “Ghosts aren’t real, Tubbo. Don’t be a pussy.”

“But-” Tubbo was quick to object, but Tommy was not too inclined to let him finish.

“No. There’s no such thing.”

“Tommy, I really think we should-”

“Tubbo, listen. My Gran’s crazy, she had this whole place done up with ghost stuff. _If_ \- that’s _if_ ghosts are real—which they aren’t—then she got rid of them. Plain and simple.”

Tubbo blinked, a bit confused. “Got rid of them?”

“She had this guy come over. He did some chanting and shit, and now it’s fine,” Tommy said. “No more ghosts.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Wilbur frowned, remembering that. He’d actually liked when Gran brought that wacko over—it was funny, and the weird herbs they’d burned had cleaned all the gross smells out of the house. It hadn’t been anything that would’ve gotten rid of him, Techno, and Phil though, that’s for sure (not that Wilbur knew of anything that _could_ get rid of them).

In the end, to stop more crazies from desecrating their house, the three of them had just stopped messing with Gran, only really interfering with her if they had a reason. Wilbur had grown tired of ‘haunting’ her, Phil finished mourning his separation from his mom, and Techno had stopped trying to get her to figure out who ‘did it’ to them. And that had been that. They’d gone on with their lives, metaphorically of course.

“What happened to them?” Tubbo asked. His voice was just as quiet as before, but not out of fear—now, he just seemed to be leveling out with the surroundings, quieting as the excitement from Wilbur’s haunting died away and the silence of the house settled around them.

“What the hell, Tubbo? What kind of question is that?” Tommy said. Weirdly enough, his voice was quieted too. 

“What? If they’re haunting us, I’d like to know,” Tubbo said. Then, he paused. “And, well, it seems important to you. And you’ve never told me.”

Tommy didn’t meet Tubbo’s eyes. Instead, he stared down at his hands as he wrung them together in his lap, thumbs rubbing over one another. And he was quiet, for a rare moment, as he seemed to think over the words.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Tubbo said, seeming to catch onto it too. He kept his gaze steady on Tommy, though, his eyes wide with curiosity.

Tommy sighed, taking a moment to himself before looking up to meet Tubbo’s eyes. “There was a fire upstairs. They all slept on the same side of the house, so… yeah.” Did he sound… sad? “It didn’t take long.” He pulled his knees up to his chest, his blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders. His voice had been heavier, carrying more weight than Wilbur was sure he’d ever heard from him.

Was Wilbur finally losing it? Was… was Tommy still upset about what happened to them?

Wilbur watched Tommy carefully for a moment, some feeling stirring in his chest. He didn’t realize how the house shook a little harder from the wind, didn’t make the connection to the shuddering, choked groans of the wood and his startling realization. 

Wilbur hadn’t thought much about Tommy’s strange reaction to going upstairs—he’d been too focused on the prospect of it being _Tommy_ , his kid cousin, that was paying the three of them a visit. But this made a bit more sense, now. ‘Creepy’ had probably been a poor way for Tommy to describe it, in Wilbur’s defense.

“Oh.” Tubbo looked down a little, to where his feet poked out from under his blanket. Like Tommy, his legs were tucked up against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Tommy asked. His eyes met Tubbo’s, again, when Tubbo looked back up. “Tubbo, you didn’t have anything to do with it.” And, right then, as their eyes met, the wind blew the trees outside, the moon shining in just enough to light up the highlights of their faces. It made them look small, just sitting there against the black backdrop. 

“No, not that way. I mean, it’s sad,” Tubbo said. “I’m sorry it happened.”

“Oh.” Tommy shuffled, pulling his blanket up higher. 

And with that, the conversation seemed to be finished. Wilbur hadn’t noticed how close he’d drifted to the two of them, and so he startled a bit, floating away with a jerk through the air. Maybe he should go find Techno and Phil. He had months to mess with the boys; he should pace himself.

Plus.

He felt a bit bad for being there now, for leaving Tubbo practically quivering in his seat after eavesdropping on such a heavy conversation.

So yeah, Wilbur floated away, up towards the second floor.

Before he could leave, though, there was one quiet voice in the darkness.

“Thank you, Tubbo,” Tommy said.

Wilbur paused, taking a moment to stop and smile. 

Maybe this _Tubbo_ wasn’t so bad. How could he be, when it seemed Tommy cared about him so much?

The thought made Wilbur’s heart ache a little more, in a different kind of way—the way that slightly calmed the aching moans of the house’s walls—but he pushed it away, turning his thoughts towards his dad and his brother instead.

For now, he set off down the hallway to find them, leaving the two boys in the living room alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! This is probably my favorite chapter I've posted so far? The bar's not crazy high since, you know, it's the third chapter, but hey. Take what you can get. Serotonin woot woot.
> 
> Oh yeah, and update day is DEFINITELY going to change. I have a meeting 4-5pm and then class 5-6:15pm on Thursday, and man,,, I'm so hungry and tired. I'll figure it out though, rest assured. The fic will go on! Really though, if there are any mistakes here, please let me know,,,,, I edited this two days ago and don't remember what I messed with.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Tubbo get to work and get hungry!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha remember when I said the next chapter would be Techno? Haha that didn’t end up happening. There was a chunk of this chapter that I nabbed from like, my first draft of chapter two, and this just felt like a good place to stick it back in. So here’s more Tommy and Tubbo and then some Phil to keep y’all going.
> 
> Also, well,,,,,, the chapter would’ve been around 4k words if I hadn’t split it up,,,,,,, so yeah, I split it right where Techno’s POV would’ve come in. Next chapter, next chapter I promise. 
> 
> One more thing: the fact that Sam Nook exists now,,,,, my heart is happy. My heart is happppyyyyy

“Wonder if my Gran has a rug like that.” Tommy rubbed a hand through his hair, blinking hard to get himself to wake up a bit faster. The house was warm from the sun, and of course it made his eyes just _droop_ as he sat there and watched Tubbo play.

Tubbo had spread his new rug out in his Animal Crossing house, the pixels flickering on the old tube TV. In these morning hours, they were just relaxing, doing a whole lot of nothing—except, of course, basking in the electricity which had come on sometime in the night. The Switch charged from its dock on the floor, their phones plugged in somewhere on the floor, half of the lights they’d fiddled with the night before lit even as the morning light streamed in.

“I don’t think so,” Tubbo said. He took a bite from the bowl of cereal precariously balanced in his lap. “It’s a bit groovy for an older lady, isn’t it?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe. She’s old. I don’t get in her shit.”

“You’re the one who asked.” Tubbo laughed. And, at that, he finished up with his breakfast and paused his game. Tommy made a noise of discontent at the interruption, but Tubbo didn’t so much as acknowledge it, just walking off back towards the kitchen without a care.

Really, it was late morning. This was the normal time to wake up for Tubbo—at times, Tommy swore Tubbo was just nocturnal—but for Tommy, this was sleeping in late. After the night before, he didn’t mind. The sun lined up almost perfectly over the kitchen sink as Tubbo approached it and washed his bowl out with the old dish soap Gran had left under the sink, the rays bright on his head, indicating just how close it was to noon.

Tommy watched as Tubbo put his bowl back in the cabinet, the overly-fine china (because of course Gran had brought her fancy china when she’d moved in) clinking softly under his careful fingertips. They hadn’t been able to dig the normal plates out of the cabinets yet, let alone find them, if they existed. And so, there Tubbo was, leaning against the counter to reach the shelf with the less fancy bowls in the china cabinet, up on his tippy-toes with a hand down to brace himself. Tommy still watched, laughing as Tubbo struggled.

Until, well.

As Tubbo leaned away from the cabinet, his hands came away dirty. One hand had been on the dusty, grime-covered counter of the cabinet, which made sense, but the other? Had just touched Gran’s fancy plates as he slid his bowl into place.

Almost at once, they both frowned.

“I guess we have to get to work,” Tubbo said, wiping his hands on the side of his pants. The grime left dark streaks on his already-dark clothing, but he seemed content to ignore it, giving his palms another swipe. 

Tommy frowned even deeper. One, it was disgusting. Two, they’d only been awake for about half an hour, and Tubbo was already suggesting they work. “Do we have to?” he whined, falling back into the couch with a huff.

And Tubbo, of course, was all-too chipper about it. “C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

“Fun? Tubbo, we’re _cleaning_ .” Because that was the plan for the summer: cleaning out the old house, only as an excuse to spend the whole time goofing off and give ‘living on his own but with Tubbo’ a chance. Looking back, he hadn’t fully thought through the whole ‘cleaning’ part. And, apparently, that was _his_ problem now. 

He groaned. “Oh, why did I agree to this?”

In response, Tubbo tossed the roll of paper towels at him, laughing at Tommy’s misery. 

Tommy, however, was too busy moping to see the roll coming—the paper towels thwapped him in the face. Then, before he could process it, the towels were rolling out across the floor, leaving a trail behind them that Tubbo would likely make him clean up. In anticipation, Tommy shot a scalding look in Tubbo’s direction.

But, at that, Tommy heaved himself up off the couch. 

And so he and Tubbo started in the kitchen, figuring it was one of the places they’d want the most clean. 

Though Tommy would never let this fact leave the room, it was a bit fun.

They very quickly turned themselves into a flurry of energy, cleaning from floor to ceiling, Tommy’s music floating through the air from the tinny speakers on his phone. With each new song that passed, Tommy would swipe off a new counter, or Tubbo would attack the tops of the cabinets with a duster, or maybe the duster would be shaken out and sicced on Tommy, followed by squawks of complaints and a long string of swears. Regardless, they worked and worked, laughing even as their muscles started to ache and their noses were clogged up from all the shifting dust.

Every now and then, Tommy’s phone would shift an inch or so from where it lay on the kitchen table, but neither of them noticed.

Why would they?

____________

“Will, stop messing with the boy’s speaker.”

“Dad, it’s not a _speaker_ , it’s a phone. And look how small they are now!” Wilbur kept trying to fiddle with the phone. The touchscreen, he’d very quickly realized, didn’t work if you couldn’t generate body heat. Or much of a physical body, for that matter. He could, however, press anything with a button. 

In other words, the volume buttons worked. And Wilbur was going to take advantage of it.

“They’re almost _flat!_ ” he said, circling the table with the phone on it. “Just imagine what I could’ve done with one of these.” 

Phil sighed. “I don’t need to imagine, Will.”

Wilbur took a moment to laugh. If given a phone like this back in his day, Wilbur would’ve done so much more than fiddle with Tommy’s volume button. Phil _would_ imagine, alright. Still, Wilbur laughed, floating backwards through the air for a moment, before sidling up next to Tommy’s phone again and getting right back to business.

____________

“Why’s the music so quiet?”

Tubbo shrugged, turning it back up. He’d turned it up so much, Tommy was surprised it wasn’t maxed out yet. But. He didn’t think there was anything to worry about; the speakers on his phone had gotten worse through the years he’d had it.

As he pulled his hand away, readjusting the spray bottle of vinegar in his hand—Gran hated chemical cleaning products, so all they were allowed was bleach for the bathrooms—he shivered. Sure enough, the metal of his phone was freezing to the touch.

“There’s a fucking draft in here, too. Of course,” Tommy started, pausing to stare angrily up at the ceiling. 

Tubbo went on cleaning, unbothered. “The whole house is a draft, I think.”

“Don’t be stupid, Tubbo. It’s just old.” Tommy wiped down the stovetop, the burners taken off and sitting, waiting to be cleaned, on the countertop. He pulled a look of disgust, though, as the paper towel came away blackened, eyes blown wide in shock. “And gross.” He dropped the towel in shock, and it fell to the floor with a disgustingly-wet _slop_ . “What the fuck!” Tommy yelled. “That’s _disgusting_!”

He’d known Gran hadn’t exactly been the most capable when it came to taking care of the house by herself, but this was just gross. This had Tommy, once again, wondering what exactly he’d agreed to when he’d decided to move in and clean the place up for the summer. 

His uncle, if he’d been there while the house was in such a state, would’ve been just as disgusted—Phil had been a very clean person, meticulous to a fault. When the house hadn’t been completely clean, everything was still right in its place, albeit in a bit of a disorganized kind of way that only seemed to make sense to him, Wilbur, and Techno. This much dirt and grime would’ve sent the man into a disappointed cleaning frenzy.

Unfortunately for him and Tubbo (well, actually, Tubbo seemed to enjoy the challenge of the disgusting house, the sick freak), Phil was not there. He would _not_ get all fussy about the state of the place and start scrubbing it down. No, that was _their_ job.

Great. Just how Tommy wanted to spend his summer.

Sure, he’d agreed to it, but that didn’t mean he was _happy_ about it. He’d still complain, both to Tubbo and in the quiet, serene contemplation of his own mind.

Tommy narrowed his eyes at the paper towel on the floor, as if it’d personally offended him. Whoever decided to leave the massive house to be cared for by his old Gran had, obviously, not been in their right mind. So yeah, he made a face at the paper towel.

Apparently, the face was funny. Tubbo laughed at him.

And Tommy, once again, contemplated his life choices.

__________

Phil would admit, the house was disgusting. It was something he’d acknowledged in the back of his head over the years, something Techno and Wilbur knew was driving him mad, but something he could, ultimately, do nothing about. So, he’d ignored it.

Obviously, though, it was becoming a pressing issue once again.

He was relieved, to say the least, as Tommy and Tubbo scrubbed about the kitchen. Techno was off elsewhere, content to keep away from the two boys for now, and Wilbur just floated about making commentary on everything Tommy and Tubbo did—goodness, this really was the most excited Phil had seen Wilbur in a long, long time, and he couldn’t be happier for it—while Phil felt years’ worth of tension seep out of his bones. Something so simple as a clean kitchen.

Well, semi-clean. Tommy and Tubbo were trying, though, and it was endearing enough (most of the time, except, of course, when Tommy tried to get Tubbo to clean the inside of the oven by _hand_ , with a bottle of _bathroom bleach_ ) that Phil could accept it.

The kitchen was, however, still not usable. And Phil highly doubted either young boy knew how to cook more than a box of macaroni—which, Phil noted, they didn’t even _have_. The pantry was near-empty, grime still clung to the corners in the kitchen, and the pieces of the stove were still littered about the counter, ready to be put back together whenever Tommy and Tubbo got back to work.

And so, Tommy and Tubbo ordered pizza.

It was supposed to be simple, right? Order the pizza, pay the delivery driver when they came, grab _plates for goodness’ sake_ , wash hands, and eat away.

Tommy and Tubbo, it seemed, had a knack for getting themselves into weird situations. Honestly, it wasn’t surprising.

Wilbur followed Tommy to the door when the doorbell rang. Phil followed, after being waved along. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, besides watch Tubbo play whatever the newest Legend of Zelda he’d gotten his hands on (another franchise Nintendo just wouldn’t put to rest). Techno was, still, nowhere to be seen.

Tommy opened the door, and everything was normal for a bit.

Until the driver’s eyes lingered beyond Tommy’s head, scanning the house.

Phil frowned. What, were they going to rob the children? If the house hadn’t been broken into with Gran there on her own, it was certainly an awful idea on the driver’s part. But still.

Carefully, Phil floated closer—better safe than sorry—to inspect the driver’s pockets. No knives, no pepper spray, no nothing. Just a wallet, a phone, and normal pizza delivery stuff.

Speaking of which.

“Here’s your… pizza?” the driver said, handing it over. Their eyes still darted about for a moment, taking advantage of Tommy’s distraction as he fished his mum’s cash from his pocket. Phil narrowed his eyes.

“Thanks,” Tommy said, finally tugging out a wrinkled note. He exchanged the goods, letting out a huff of happiness at the (Phil assumed) strong smell of greasy pizza.

Wilbur laughed, floating up into the doorway to get a better angle. He stayed inside the doorway, though—he kept his distance from the delivery driver, seeming to pick up easily on Phil’s suspicion. “So he _can_ be polite,” Wilbur said, mocking the oblivious Tommy. “Little prick just doesn’t want to.”

And, at that, the driver’s eyes went wide, looking straight towards Wilbur as he lingered, high above the ground, over Tommy and Tubbo’s shoulders. 

Wilbur’s eyes went just as wide in response. 

“You sure this is your order?” the driver asked, promptly turning back to Tommy. Their voice had jumped up a bit, not quite as steady and bored as it’d been at first. “I didn’t mix them up again-” they scratched at their chin, attempting to maintain some semblance of calm, “...did I?”

“No, just the one. Cheese, right?” Tommy peeked inside the box. “Yeah, it’s right. Thanks, man.”

“Will,” Phil said, his voice low. Now, he threw the guise of nonchalance to the wind—things just got weird, fast. After Wilbur had spoken, that delivery person had looked _right_ at him; at least, Phil was pretty sure. He turned to Wilbur. “Did they just look at us?”

Wilbur nodded. “Think so.”

A bit warily, hands shaking, the driver gave Tommy his change. Every so often, their eyes would flick up in Wilbur’s direction, only to go back down and give an identical glance up at Phil. 

Tommy gave a grateful nod in their direction, completely oblivious. “Have a nice night,” he said.

The driver, quite pointedly, just stared as Tommy turned and failed to acknowledge the floating, not-quite-opaque little family that’d been there in the doorway with him. Tommy shut the door, oblivious.

The door closed with a _thud_ and a _click_ , as Tommy put the lock into place. 

And Wilbur, in a quite anti-climatic manner, huffed. “First _Tubbo_ ,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “now a random delivery driver?”

Phil couldn’t help his wry, out-of-place smile. “What?”

Of course, Wilbur just waved him off. “All that time with Gran,” he went on, shaking his head, “and it’s these two _jokers_ that get it to work. Great.”

Phil would admit, he was confused. Wilbur had told him of his escapades last night, how he’d spooked Tubbo until the poor kid’s face was white, but this? A bit stranger. Wilbur seemed to find no concern in this—in fact, he seemed to be joking about it, if Phil was right. It was weird, this whole thing that’d just happened, and honestly? Phil just didn’t know how _he_ felt about it.

For now, though, Phil kept the thoughts to himself. He went along with Wilbur, as they floated after Tommy back down the hallway.

And he pondered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that last bit relevant? Or is this just a convoluted way of confusing you guys on the ghost mechanics? Or,,,, is this just me wanting to write more Wilbur complaining about things? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Again, please say hello to my lack of self-restraint. I’m here all night.
> 
> Update days are looking like Tuesdays, btw. Still have a late class uhhhhh yeah, but I’m gonna do it anyways!!!! :D Thank you guys so much for reading!
> 
> Also I'm so sorry I'm so sorry pizza person isn't Ranboo I'm sorry I'm so so sorry I'm- /lh /j


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno and Tommy (separately) come to very different conclusions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just take a moment to say thank you guys??? This has very quickly become my most kudos-ed fic???? Thank you guys so much???????? The idea that THAT many of you liked this, let alone that this has gotten the amount of hits that it has, is so beyond astounding?????
> 
> Also, ngl……… I may have gone overboard with Techno (this chapter is 3k words and I usually hit around 2k-2.5k ahhhh). I just got *into* writing him, then I added more when I was editing, and then I,,,, well. There are a lot of thinky parts in Techno's part of this chapter, but I really had fun with it and I think I reallllllllly like how it turned out :D Still, lmk if Techno feels ooc, or if it feels overly rambly :) 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!!!!!

Afternoon came, and Techno found their visitors hanging around the property. 

Or, rather, they found him—he’d been out there first, after all. 

Regardless of the circumstances, he watched silently from above, hanging around in the branch of a tree as they fiddled about among its roots. It wasn’t too hot or too cold outside, just warm enough for Tommy and Tubbo to linger about in the dwindling sunlight, having fun after an afternoon full of work and a far too much cheap pizza. Tubbo swung on the old swing, the rope still strong and the wood still sturdy after all these years, laughing with his head thrown back as Tommy tried, and failed, to push him any higher. The rope groaned, and the tree branch moved just barely with his weight, but there seemed to be not a worry in his head, nor in Tommy’s, as they just went back and forth and had their fun.

Techno’s interest was idle, neither here nor there. But he’d kept his distance throughout the day, both from the two of them and his more immediate family, and hey, it wasn’t like there was much else to do. The children had become the latest attraction, and Techno would sit through it for a bit—albeit not without begrudging it in his own head. 

So there he was, a leg dangling from the branch.

The swing had been there as long as Techno could remember. His dad had put it up not long after adopting him and Wilbur, telling them of how Gran had always wanted to own a big house like this, with a swing in the front yard and lots of space for kids to play. She’d never gotten the chance when Phil was a kid, but Phil had never let that stop him. He’d put the swing up anyway.

“ _To spite fate,”_ he’d said. He’d knotted the rope and tugged it up into the tree’s sturdy limbs, and he’d told Techno of the manufacturer's guarantees, how they promised it’d be there for years and years, “ _long after we’re gone, I’ll bet.”_

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“Stop it Tubbo! You’re going to _kick me_ !” Tommy yelled, running wildly out from under the swing. Just as he rolled out from the dirt, Tubbo swung past in a flash, going much higher and faster than Techno thought was possible, not a care in the world. Tommy, of course, kept complaining. “ _Tubbo!”_

This only made Tubbo laugh harder, swinging his legs around through the air—as if hitting Tommy was, in fact, his intention. Tommy was dramatic though, always had been and probably always would be, and it wasn’t like he was in any actual danger.

It reminded Techno of Wilbur, in a bittersweet kind of way.

Techno and Wilbur hadn’t been… friendly, exactly, right after they’d been adopted. Their friendship, and everything that came with it, was far from instant—Wilbur was loud and boisterous, and Techno preferred to keep his dad to himself. The conflict was bound to happen. 

Wilbur had had a good couple of tantrums in the first year or so. With mostly good memories still stuck up in his head, for Techno’s memory had never been the best when it came to that kind of thing, he only remembered how it went afterwards—Phil had always come out and to make sure Techno was okay, after calming Wilbur down. Sometimes, Phil had pushed him in the swing; other times, he’d given him more space and let Techno come in on his own. Usually, Techno had taken Phil’s hand in his, his hand so much smaller at the time, and let his dad guide him back inside. 

Wilbur had usually apologized. Techno didn’t remember the times he didn’t. They’d smoothed it out between the two of them, over time—it’d taken them a little while, and Techno had definitely gotten physical more than he liked to admit, but they’d gotten through it eventually. 

And a lot of it had happened in this very swing, the one Tommy and Tubbo, apparently instant friends, fiddled with now.

Even after he’d made friends with Wilbur, Techno had spent hours exactly where Tommy and Tubbo were now, usually by himself. Night, day, evening, dawn—it didn’t matter. The swing had been his _spot_ , the place he always went when the house was too loud or his thoughts were too crowded or just when he wanted to be alone. First simply somewhere to escape to when Wilbur was acting up, it quickly became… _his_.

The swing had sat empty more and more as he and Wilbur had grown older, but it was still used enough. Wilbur had brought his first girlfriend over and sat her in the swing, and Techno had glared at them between the blinds. Even later on in his life, Techno had still climbed the big old tree quite often, using it as a shortcut to get up to the third floor where the big old limb stretched out towards the window. Phil had spent long hours raking up the leaves every autumn, taking a couple of moments to relax on the swing whenever he’d needed a break.

But it’d been empty for so long—five long, desolate years. Wilbur didn’t bring over any girlfriends anymore, Techno didn’t have to climb it anymore, and strangers from landscaping companies came to sweep up the leaves in Phil’s place. The tree, and the swing attached, had fallen into disrepair just as the rest of the house had.

But Tommy and Tubbo were here now, swinging happily as the afternoon faded away. 

Phil and Wilbur were optimistic—overjoyed, even—about this whole thing, about having these two fresh faces around the place, breathing life back into the walls with every burst of laughter. Techno had seen it in their eyes the second the front door had creaked open. And he’d brought it up the night before, chatting quietly with Phil as Wilbur had scared the two kids out of their wits with his ‘haunting,’ but his concerns had been all-but waved away.

The belief that Tommy and Tubbo would somehow remedy the three of them was inherent, there in the way Phil was smiling more and Wilbur was laughing louder again, there in every bit of conversation that had come up in the past 24 hours. 

And, really?

Techno didn’t blame himself for wanting to be more realistic about it. Phil and Wilbur could daydream all they wanted, but… the swing would be empty, again, eventually— _shortly_ , if the theory that they were only there for the summer was true. And when it was, well.

Techno didn’t want to see them hurt, later. 

He’d mostly kept his thoughts to himself through his conversation with Phil the day before. Wilbur had jokingly called Techno a tsundere a couple times in their lives (“more like a kuudere,” Phil would comment), and Techno would admit, he wasn’t the best at the whole ‘directly telling people he cares about them’ thing. As Phil asked him why he was being avoidant, he’d held his tongue. Phil had still frowned, had picked up on the problem as Techno hedged around it, he hadn’t pushed it; instead, he’d given Techno space, letting him linger outside through the day, without comment.

Well, mostly.

“They’re cute, aren’t they?” 

On cue, a voice broke Techno from his thoughts. He was quick to find the source, reflexes still sharp after five years in the afterlife—who would’ve thought?

Above him, Wilbur lounged around up among the tree’s higher branches, a devious smile on his face. He very much resembled a Cheshire cat, the world full of nonsense in a way that made him smile, teeth on display and shining translucent, like the rest of him, in the dying sunlight. And somehow, there was all the ease in the world in the way he did it, his limbs all languid and lazy, propped up against the bark of the tree as if he couldn’t just float up anyways.

It made Techno’s frown slide to something neutral. “I wouldn’t say ‘cute,’” he deadpanned, turning down to look at the swing. There, Tubbo still laughed at Tommy’s expanse, high and bright and full of easy happiness as Tommy fought to keep his scowl on his face. “They’re entertaining enough.”

“Always such a downer.” Wilbur floated through the leaves, out into the open air over the boys’ heads. “C’mon Techno, this is the most exciting this place has ever been!” he said, throwing his arms out wide. Then, he pointed a finger towards Techno’s face, “You like them. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I don’t have to pretend.”

Wilbur laughed. And with that, he coasted down and gave a branch of the tree a slight shake—the branch the swing was hanging from, that is. 

Tubbo stuttered a bit in the air, swinging higher than he had before.

And, with a bright peal of laughter, he swung down.

Right in the direction of Tommy.

Tommy managed to duck, rolling into the dirt with a cry of “Tubbo! What the fuck!” (among other curses). And Tubbo just laughed harder.

“Just wait until dad realizes how much Tommy swears,” Wilbur said, smiling slyly in the corner of his mouth.

“It’d be a bit hypocritical,” Techno grunted. Phil swore all the time—he’d given up on trying to censor himself when the two of them turned fourteen, and he’d never gone back. A number of ‘concerned parents’ had tried to get him to stop, but Phil was an unstoppable force when he put his mind to it. They’d lost before they’d started.

“Eh, that’s fair,” Wilbur said. Then, he put his hand to his chin in thought, a dangerous sign. “Hey, what if we-”

And, that’s when it clicked: Phil told Wilbur to come out and fetch Techno, worried after a whole day’s worth of silent absence from the rest of them. With a reluctant sigh, Techno floated off. “Fine, I’ll go inside,” he said.

“Well, that was easier than I thought.” Wilbur smiled.

Techno rolled his eyes as he turned away, taking a moment to watch Wilbur’s smile over his shoulder. “Don’t count on it,” he said.

“You know, you’re a real prick sometimes, Techno.”

“Well aware.”

Another laugh from Wilbur’s direction, as Techno turned away.

It was just enough—there it was again, closer this time. Those memories: bittersweet, yet happy beyond a shadow of a doubt, right there in that goofy grin on Wilbur’s face, the one that’d been so rare just two days ago.

Techno blinked his eyes back to normal, shrugging the interaction off as he departed. He was careful to keep his memories at bay, careful to keep his own smile off his face, both at Wilbur’s antics and at the memories of similar times. If no one else would be, Techno would be careful. 

He waved Wilbur a quick goodbye over his shoulder, not bothering to look back again as Wilbur blabbed at his back about something—instead, he just floated on back towards the house at long last. 

And, still, he kept his thoughts on that swing, on the seat that would be empty and silent before long.

________

Tommy, despite his complaints about Tubbo hogging it, didn’t want to get on the swing. So he kept pushing Tubbo up and down, ignoring the way his arms hurt as Tubbo’s laughs echoed across the field. The sun was setting, but he didn’t care—he just went on, yelling as Tubbo aimed for his head and smiling wide as he rolled out of the way, dirt and grass stains peppering the fabric of his shirt. Tubbo’s legs would go soaring past, pulling indignant squawks from Tommy’s mouth as he pushed himself upright, squawks that quickly dissolved into laughter as Tubbo came swinging back down in the opposite direction. 

And when Tubbo was done, they flopped down in the grass nearby, side-by-side, panting with exhaustion and laughing at stupid things, the ground cool to the touch underneath them. Every now and then, there would be a ripple as wind blew through the field, the swing blowing gently in the breeze along with it, their hair sliding this way and that. Meanwhile, the sun slowly set on the horizon, the dregs of the evening burning away inch by inch.

It was familiar, like a lot of things in the house were. 

And, somewhere along the line, another memory crept, of its own accord, into the corners of his head, slipping in between the threads of his dwindling conversation with Tubbo.

He’d been out there with Techno, one of the rare moments where it’d been just the two of them.

“ _Techno, push me, push me, push me!”_ Tommy had yelled at Techno, annoying and loud as ever, fluttering his legs about on the swing. He’d failed to get any height, too lightweight at the time to do much—he’d been _young_ young, around five years old. “ _Pleeeeeease?”_

Techno had pushed him for a moment, out of reluctance. And, naturally, Tommy had whined about how it “ _wasn’t enough_ ” and how he had to “ _actually, like really push_ .” Predictably, this had only made Techno grumpier. It was funny, in retrospect—Techno hadn’t been _particularly_ grumpy, unprovoked, but most versions of him in Tommy’s memories were very much so.

And so Tommy laughed, now, as he relayed the story to Tubbo. They lay there together on the grass, completely at ease after the long day of cleaning and goofing off, and Tubbo didn’t interrupt or even say much as Tommy talked, just nodding and laughing where it was right, eyes pointed up towards the sky.

Though, at the apparent end of the story, Tubbo leveraged himself up on his elbow so he could see Tommy’s face. There were indents from the grass along his arms now, like the marks of a blanket after a nice, warm nap. “And then what?” he asked.

Tommy stilled a bit, brows dropping in confusion. “What?”

“What’d Techno do? Did he get angry?” Tubbo clarified, amusement in his voice. “What, did he- did he whack you, or something?”

“No? What the hell, why would he do that?”

“Isn’t that what older brothers—or, well, I guess he’s an older brother _figure_ here—isn’t that what they do? He did fighting and stuff too, right?”

“Sure, but- but Techno would never hurt me. And fencing doesn’t count, the swords are all- all _bendy_ and shit.” Tommy pushed Tubbo over, so he flopped back onto his back in the grass with a slight _oomph_. “Look at that, now you look like an idiot.”

“Well _sorry_!”

Tommy laughed, loud as always. “You’re a- a real _bitch_ , Tubbo.”

“I know, I know.”

Then, well, Tommy actually took a moment to consider Tubbo’s words—the brain-to-mouth filter kicked in, for once in his life, albeit a bit too late. “Well,” he started, pausing again to think. “I guess Techno did get mad. He yelled at me to get off the swing, and he made me go inside,” Tommy said, after a moment. Then, he smiled. “I didn’t listen.”

“Didn’t think you would.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Phil was all, ‘it’s Techno’s turn on the swing, Tommy give Techno a turn.’ Bullshit.” He shook his head. “He was sixteen, what’s a sixteen-year-old want to do with a, a fucking _swing_.”

Tubbo frowned, though there was still humor all over his face. “Tommy, _we’re_ -”

“Oh, shut up,” Tommy said, no malice in his voice. It was completely hypocritical, but Tubbo wasn’t supposed to point it out, now was he. 

Tubbo did go quiet, though.

Only, for some reason, Tubbo kept on smiling, even when the story was long over. He just lay there, once again at ease next to Tommy on the grass, with a dumb smile on his face and no explanation for it.

Tommy would ask, then. “What’s so funny?” He sat up and brushed his fingers through his hair to try to get any grass out, if that was what Tubbo was smiling about. When nothing came out, his face just creased even more in confusion. 

Tubbo laughed, a short little giggle to himself. “Nothing.”

“Stop it! What’s so funny?” He looked around, trying to follow Tubbo’s eyes up to the sky to see if that was it, to no avail. Then, his gaze was back on Tubbo, who still lay there easily against the grass. “ _Stop it!”_

Tubbo’s laugh faded, but the smile remained.

“What?” Tommy pushed.

A pause. 

A contemplative look, crossing right over Tubbo’s face.

Then, quietly.

“That’s the first time you’ve talked about them.” Tubbo’s eyes flicked from the sky back over to Tommy. “Without me pestering you, I mean.”

Tommy stiffened. 

And, very suddenly, he felt way too- way too _something_ . Way too- too _seen_. Even though that was ridiculous because this was Tubbo, and he told Tubbo everything, and so there was nothing Tubbo should see that Tommy didn’t. Well, except this. Apparently.

Because, though he would never fully admit it, Tubbo was right. Tommy never talked about the three of them unprompted. Somehow, he’d just never realized it.

“Oh, yeah, I guess,” Tommy mumbled, dropping back onto the grass. Still, he felt all stiff, but he tried to get himself to relax again nonetheless.

“No, Tommy, this is good! It’s a good thing!” Tubbo said, his voice softened again, tinted with that smile on his face. 

Tommy laughed—why, he wasn’t entirely certain. It let a lot of the tension out of his body. “Alright, Tubbo. Don’t go all- all _therapist_ on me, now.”

A happy-sounding sigh came from beside him. “Alright, alright. I’ll stop,” Tubbo said.

And with that, they were back to relaxing into the grass. It felt even better than it did before Tommy told the story, before he’d gone all tense—the tension was gone now, and with it went the other stress he hadn’t even known he’d been holding onto. There were still problems and conflicts he knew were there, all the shit his parents had tried to send him to therapy for when he was a kid, but this still felt alright. It felt better, just finally being able to tell a silly little story like that.

Tommy smiled easily, and he blinked slowly up at the sunset.

It felt better. 

Slowly, it felt like it was getting better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man,,,, not to toot my own horn, but the parallels with Techno and Tommy’s parts in this were fun. Characters seeing the situation according to their biases????? Hmmmm so much fun. Side note to explain it a bit: this Techno has, like canon Techno, been betrayed many times in his life (primarily pre-adoption, though as seen here, things weren’t okie dokie right away with Wilbur and Phil), and,,,,,, well, we all know the stunning optimism of Tommy and Tubbo. But yeah, their perceptions are pretty warped on the situation! Which I think is fun!!!! Hehehehe. Seriously though, I hope it comes across okay, so lmk if it's not clear or anything :)
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe down below, and hit the notification bell to make sure you never miss an update :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy thinks, and Tubbo has an idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hnnnnnnngh another thinky chapter I’m sorrrrry. The next chapter has a lot more stuff moving around, and after that there's also a lot more moving parts, I promise :P Tbh it kinda shouldn’t be its own chapter,,,,, but this division felt a lot better than any other way I could think to do it,,, it's an awkward little piece.
> 
> Also: I'll very likely come back and edit this chapter later tonight, just because it's not my favorite at the moment,,, I did most of my rewrites at like 12-2 am fueled by Cavetown and Mitski and Wilbur so please excuse typos,, *gestures to no beta tag*,,,,, I'll get to 'em at like 12-2 am tonight woot woot.  
> ****update: edited as of 2/10 1:32am EST woot woot, hope all you late people enjoy :)
> 
> ALSO ALSO 5k hits pogggggggg really thank you guys so much!!!
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy!!!!!! :)

Maybe it was getting better, this whole _thing_ Tommy had going on with the house.

But that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

Or …did it?

He hoped not.

Thing was: now that he was aware of what the house was doing to him (thanks, Tubbo), Tommy saw it everywhere. _Everywhere._

It’d been nice when it was just him and Tubbo hanging out in a field, when the memories were slow and lazy like the sun setting on the horizon, but here? 

It was a _lot_ , and it came on _fast._ Far faster than he wanted. The realization spurred by Tubbo’s words had opened the floodgates, and shit was pouring out everywhere.

He’d spent the night with thoughts spinning around in his head, all the strange parts of the house standing out more than ever before, brilliant and bright and glaring in his face with every twitch of his eyes. And now, it felt… it felt like he had when he’d first gone upstairs, when that weird _feeling_ had washed over him and sent him retreating back down, when he’d gazed on everything familiar and felt it all squeezing in on him at once, when it’d all rushed around his head like a cold gust of wind. He wasn’t quite sure what the feeling _was_ —he didn’t quite care enough to try and figure it out—but it was an apt descriptor for now.

Regardless of his feelings on it, the memories came a bit more easily the next morning, as he and Tubbo got ready for the day. Sure, he was aware of it now, could see how the boundaries he’d put up over the years were slowly coming undone, but he was helpless to stop it.

While waiting for Tubbo to finish up in the bathroom, Tommy sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window with his eyes on the field outside. Distantly, somewhere in the back of his mind, he scrutinized the way the wind waved the flowers together as one, the way the petals fluttered through the air. But then, just as when he’d gone upstairs that time, the words floated on through of their own accord.

“ _Uncle Phil, did you know Tubbo’s mum has a garden?”_

It was a memory Tommy recalled a bit more clearly than some of the others, one of him and his uncle, the two of them out for a stroll across the landscape. Phil had always tried to drain Tommy’s energy, always took the time to take him out for walks when he’d wanted to sit around and play games all day, and it’d never worked—Tommy, as a kid, had been full of energy anyways. Still, Tommy had trailed after his uncle, the dry grass brushing against his calves, taking two steps for every one of Phil’s. Phil’s hand had been wrapped around his, even as Tommy bounced along the path.

In the memory, Phil had shaken his head—how would he have had any way of knowing about Tubbo’s mum and her garden?—but he’d gone along with it anyways. “ _S_ _he does? Oh, that’s cool,”_ he’d said.

 _“Right?”_ Tommy had said. _“Tubbo said she picks leaves from her garden to make her own tea, and tea’s usually really gross, but she makes the_ good _stuff just for us when I come over.”_ At that, he’d turned up to look at Phil. “ _Do you have a garden? Mum says we don’t have the space, but you have_ tons _of it! I could show you how to make tea the_ right _way if you had a garden.”_

“ _Not anymore, no.”_ Phil had said. “ _Wilbur liked gardening for a little while when he was around your age. He’s past it now.”_ A smile, fond and slightly nostalgic. _“Techno was the legos, and Wilbur was the gardening, for a bit. Then Techno started gardening,_ ” he’d said. Then, his face had creased in thought. _“They… had a lot of interests, actually.”_

Tommy’s nose had wrinkled. “ _I’m glad Techno switched to swords.”_ In his young mind, nothing could possibly compare to seeing his older cousin hold a sword—except maybe being able to hold one himself. And so he’d said, quite wistfully, “ _I wish I could use swords.”_

Only to have Phil offer him a thoughtful nod. “ _Maybe another time,”_ he’d said. “ _I can show you the old greenhouse, though, if you like?”_

“ _Really? Promise you’re not lying?”_

Another nod, this one accompanied by a smile. “ _Not lying, I promise.”_

And, just like that, gone were all thoughts of swords. Tommy had grinned wide and toothy, showing off the gap where a tooth had vacated a couple of weeks ago. “ _I’m gonna tell Tubbo about this!”_

Phil smiled in Tommy’s memory, even though Tommy hadn’t looked to see. 

Instead, young Tommy had gone racing down the hill towards nothing, feeling invincible in his excitement, never one to look back at the expense of adventure. _“He’s gonna love it!”_ he’d yelled, throwing his hands up with a bright laugh.

In his joy, he tipped over and fell halfway down the hill. 

But he’d fallen a lot as a child—this was nothing new—and he’d popped right back up brandishing a bloody knee, brambles peppering his skin, before his uncle could even get scared. He’d even been smiling, triumphant about the whole ordeal.

He hadn’t seen the greenhouse that day. 

His uncle had taken him back to the house and patched him up, telling him how they’d go the next day—until the next morning when, as if designed to make him miserable, rain clouds had swept in to replace the sunny sky, and the adventure had been postponed.

Eventually, it’d been postponed indefinitely. Phil was busy and plans were complicated, and the greenhouse ended up being something they'd get to ‘next time.’

When he’d gone back to school next, Tommy had told Tubbo about the greenhouse anyway.

And Tubbo had loved it, if Tommy remembered correctly. He’d loved it, even as Tommy fabricated details and spun his tales, and Tommy had loved it right along with him, brandishing his scraped knees and bruised up arms like war medals. It was a good story, a good memory too—it was one Tommy wasn’t too miffed about having take up space in his head. He found himself smiling, despite himself.

It was right then that, in the present day, Tubbo walked in, of course. Right when Tommy was smiling to himself like a git. He dropped it, the memory quickly slipping away to the back of his mind.

Tubbo didn’t seem to notice—he was too busy with the towel in his hair, trying his hardest to rub his head dry. The towel left his hair sticking up in all directions, sure, but he didn’t seem to care, just approached with a curious look in his eyes, following Tommy’s gaze out to the yard. “Something up?”

“Thinking,” Tommy said, snapping back to attention at the movement in the corner of his eye. “You know-” he turned to face Tubbo fully, “-my uncle was kind of a dick, now that I think about it.”

“What?” Tubbo asked, poorly stifling a laugh.

“There’s a greenhouse somewhere around here,” Tommy explained. “He never showed it to me. Just told me about it, and he- he let me suffer. It was a dick move.” His words were no doubt a strange caricature of the situation—a bit, played up for a laugh—but it was better than telling Tubbo about the weird _feeling_ , now wasn’t it?

Of course, Tubbo somehow got him back to that anyways.

“Well…” Tubbo trailed off, giving his head one last swipe with the towel before giving up. He looked up to meet Tommy’s eyes. “Do you want to go find it?”

Tommy’s brain stopped—he certainly hadn't been expecting that. But, by the look on Tubbo’s face and the excitement glittering in his eyes, this was a serious question, a proposition for a fun adventure. “Right now?” Tommy asked, squirming a bit (though, he will note, he tried not to). And boom, right with Tubbo’s words: the _feeling_ was back. 

A shrug. “Why not?”

“Uh… you know, I’m pretty tired,” Tommy said, still sitting there in place. “Yesterday was- it was pretty busy, wasn’t it?”

A flat look crossed Tubbo’s face.

“What? It _was_ !” It was a good reason—they’d done a lot of work the day before, on top of the sleepy late morning and the subsequent late night that’d followed. He _was_ tired.

But then, there was a frown on Tubbo’s face. “If you’re going to make an excuse, at least come up with a _good_ one,” he said. Then, he came closer, leaning on the kitchen table, bouncing a bit and making it shake. “ _C’mon_ , it’ll be fun!”

Again, Tommy squirmed, both internally and externally. He still didn’t know what it was—there was a lot he didn’t seem to know when it came to this goddamn house—but he still didn’t like it. So he just crossed his arms over his chest, trying to play it off. “It’s not an excuse!” he sputtered.

Tubbo’s expression remained.

“Tubbo, I- I don’t even know where the thing is!” Tommy exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know, that was kind of the whole point? Were you even listening?”

“Of course I was! I just- we can probably find it, if we-”

Now, though, it was Tommy’s turn to frown. “You know what? You’re being weird.”

“No I’m not! _You’re_ being weird!” Tubbo said, huffing a bit. “I just want to- wait.” He stopped—there’d been a lapse in thought somewhere along the line, it seemed. A thought lit up his eyes. “Did they have bees in the greenhouse?”

“Oh, don’t pull the _bee_ thing.”

Tubbo’s smile got a bit wider, half of a laugh popping out of his mouth. “It’s not a _thing_ . I like bees,” he said. “You’re the one that made it a _thing_.”

Tommy sighed. They were getting off-topic, now. “You’re still being weird,” he said, frowning. “I mean- _really_? The bee card?”

“Yeah, well you’re being weird, too,” Tubbo said, point-blank. “We’re both weird. Whatever.” Then, he grabbed Tommy’s hand and tried to tug him out of his chair, smiling ever-wider when Tommy didn’t budge. “Come on! It’ll be fun, I promise,” he said, smiling. “We can get back at your uncle for being a dick, right?”

Tommy grumbled. His whole head was vehemently against this whole greenhouse thing, and he still wasn’t quite sure why. This was just the cherry on top: now he had to deal with Tubbo about it. 

He huffed, looking up at Tubbo from where he stood, trying to drag him outside against his will.

Finally, glancing at his outstretched hand, Tommy pushed the _feeling_ away. “Fine.” He would go along with it. He wouldn’t _like_ it, and there was still that strange dread lurking in the back of his head at the thought of heading out there, but he would still do it. 

Tubbo would keep annoying him if he didn’t. He was being all- all clingy and shit today.

Tommy still felt _off_ —he was pretty sure the feeling had been there, on and off, since he’d walked up the front steps a couple days ago, and just trying to get rid of it definitely wouldn’t be enough—but he had a Tubbo to deal with. And there was no way he would get away from this without caving in.

He would just… forget about it, for a second.

Yeah.

Just like he’d done before. Forget about it.

He had time. He could deal with it eventually. He’d done it before—for _years_ , really. What was a couple more hours, days, weeks, months?

He didn’t need this dumbass _feeling_ , anyways. Dickhead. He had Tubbo to hold his attention, against his will, for now. It was just… delegation, to a future Tommy.

He uncrossed his arms, his frown fading away as he stared up at Tubbo. “My uncle wasn’t actually a dick, you know,” he clarified.

Tubbo took Tommy’s hand and pulled him up from his chair. The chair fell back to all four legs with a clatter. “I figured.”

And so, at that, he was bounding off through the house in Tubbo’s wake, footsteps pounding and thumping against the old hardwood floors, their socks sending them slipping about with every other step. 

And, despite all the moping he’d just done, despite how Tubbo zipped him up the stairs towards the second floor, Tommy smiled.

He forgot about the feeling, and he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yea,,,, like I said, not much happened in this chap, just some character stuff I wanted to settle down before we get into the next big thing. I mean, this story is mostly fluffy stuff,,,, if the lack of a consistent plotline wasn’t a clue, then I hope this chapter is :D 
> 
> We’re getting closer to Tommy and Tubbo learning of the SBI, though, so don’t worry!!!! I might update again this week, since ye old uni’s giving me Monday and Tuesday off (compensation for snatching spring break). Who knows, who knows, we’ll see. So yeah,,,,,,,, ye
> 
> As always, hope you enjoyed! Scream at me down below, if you are so inclined!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil gets involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha guess who didn't update twice haha,,,, uni said they'd give us two days off but they really meant four days of work to do so uhhhhhh oops. Also I was going to wait until Tommy was done streaming to post but I'm also getting food right now so hehe have this. Have some not fluff content (kind of) for once!!! It's fun, I'm mixing it up ya know >:D heheheeeeee hope you enjoy!!!!!! :)
> 
> Side note: I have done minimal research about Britain. I'm (sadly) American,,,, so while I use the word "a&e" in this chap I will probably not use much other slang nor will I research the hypothetical area which Phil's house is in,,, man I just don't want to. For a future chapter I did, of course, spend like 20 minutes researching British soup brands though, it's really all or nothing and I have no control over it lmao. Just take it, please /lh /j

“They’re on the roof.”

Phil looked up to see Wilbur poking his head upside down from the ceiling, Techno by his side with his long hair hanging down towards the floor. Wilbur was the one who had spoken, but Techno was the one frowning, Wilbur’s face curved just slightly into a smile—it was that smile he always seemed to have, the one that was not-quite so mischievous as the others. This was cause for slight concern.

And, as if to prove Wilbur’s words, voices, laughter, and a series of pounding footsteps came from above.

So Tommy and Tubbo were on the roof. Phil’s brows dropped low. “Why?” he asked.

“They’re trying to find the greenhouse.”

Of course they were. He’d never shown Tommy where it was, if he remembered correctly—no matter how many times he’d meant to, it’d always slipped his mind. It seemed karma had finally caught up with him for that. “They won’t be able to see it from there,” he said. “The hill’s in the way.”

Wilbur’s smile dimmed, ever-so-slightly. “They don’t know that.”

“Can you get them down?” Techno finally spoke up, his eyes hooded low and his voice a grumble. He looked, in every possible way one could, as if he wanted nothing to do more than pass this problem off onto someone else—thus, there he was at Wilbur’s side. “I’d rather not be stuck with them for all of eternity.”

Wilbur tilted his head in agreement. “Tommy _is_ pretty annoying.”

At that, Phil couldn’t help a slight smile. His forever-20-year-old sons were working together for once, and _this_ was the reason why. Tommy and Tubbo were being dumb, not that Phil should’ve expected anything less given what he knew of his nephew, and here were Wilbur and Techno sticking their heads out of the ceiling, agreeing for once. It was nice, especially with Techno keeping his distance over the past couple of days. So excuse the smile.

Still, though, Phil sighed as he got out of his chair (he liked to pretend sometimes, okay?) and floated up towards the ceiling. “Can’t leave them alone, can I?” he said, careful to leave his book propped, the spine up, on the end table beside him—he was at a good part, poor book care be damned. Though, that said, he was amazed he’d even _gotten_ to that part: given the same amount of time alone at that age, Wilbur and Techno would’ve gotten up to a lot more.

Nonetheless, Phil floated up through the third floor and the attic, Wilbur and Techno following along. That is, until Phil phazed through the roofing; at that point, the two of them were content to peek through the roof, a safe distance away as he took in the situation they’d left on his hands.

And, oh.

What a situation it was.

Tubbo was up on the peak of the roof, feet balanced right on the point as he leaned over and squinted at the hill blocking his view. There was, as Phil had predicted, nothing to be seen but for the flowers that’d bloomed in the absence of landscapers, and yet Tubbo still leaned as if he expected that to change any moment. He leaned, and he leaned, and he leaned, all-but oblivious to the drop beneath him. 

Phil hadn’t taken him to be afraid of heights to begin with, but this was pushing it.

Tommy was down from the peak of the roof, but he was still on the edge—he had his hands clasped on the side, sitting and leaning down at the ground with bewilderment all over his face, measuring the drop with his eyes. That is until, apparently satisfied with his observations, he stalked up to join Tubbo right at the top, just to make Phil’s eyebrows crease a bit more in the middle. 

“Do you see it?” Tubbo yelled, as Tommy approached—it seemed the boy could keep up with Tommy when it came to being loud, though looking back, Phil didn’t know why he’d assumed otherwise. Throw in the evolutionary disaster that was this whole _roof_ situation, and it was no wonder they were such good friends.

“I can’t see shit,” Tommy said, his gaze swivelling back and forth, a frown reaching out far and wide across his face. “Just fucking- fucking _flowers_. Why the hell did they have so many? Whose idea was this?”

“They didn’t plant them. They’re wildflowers,” Tubbo said. He smiled, just barely, and his eyes softened, if only for a moment, before he turned back to Tommy. “I actually think they’re quite pretty.”

Tommy went on complaining anyways, unbothered. “Yeah, well, the shitheads are in my way. I can’t see.”

The conversation was nothing special, just more of what Phil had quickly gotten used to over the past couple of days. It was endearing, it was funny, all the like.

There were more important things to deal with—neither boy, through their conversation, seemed to notice how Tubbo’s back foot teetered against the tiles, unsteady as could be. Wilbur had nearly tumbled off this very roof many times as a kid, when he’d go up there late at night to mope—Phil had learned to spot all the slippery spots with his eyes, over the years. Tubbo’s back foot was at one of those spots. The conversation was cute, in the same way that Techno and Wilbur’s conversation just before had been, but it wasn’t Phil’s biggest concern at the moment. If they stuck up there much longer, Tommy and Tubbo were going to get themselves killed.

So, yes. Phil would be very happy to interrupt. 

Sighing, he approached the peak of the roof.

“Can they hear us at all? Do you know?” Phil asked, trying to assess the situation. He kept his gaze rooted on Tommy and Tubbo, even as he addressed Wilbur and Techno from where they lurked over his shoulder—they’d spent more time with the two boys (collectively, as Techno was still being concerningly distant) than Phil had. 

Techno shrugged.

“Tubbo heard me laugh,” Wilbur said. “Are you going to try talking to them?”

“Unless you can think of something else.”

No response. 

Wilbur was silent. Techno was also silent. 

It seemed this would have to do. 

First, though: Phil knew Tommy and Tubbo wouldn’t leave it alone until they found the greenhouse. Sure, Tubbo seemed to be the weakness to Tommy’s stubbornness, but Tubbo didn’t seem ready to leave anytime soon, seemed determined to find the damned thing despite being the one most likely to fall in the immediate future. Without given another way to get there, the two of them would just pop right back up there the first opportunity they had, and that was assuming they’d leave without it in the first place. Another way to the greenhouse they would need. 

And so Phil turned back to Wilbur. “Will, try to show them the path to the greenhouse,” he said. “A map or something, I don’t know.”

“Aye-aye Philza dad, sir,” Wilbur saluted. And, at that, he was sliding down through the ceiling. 

Techno followed shortly thereafter, seemingly unsure of what else to do with himself in this situation. Though it was dim, hardly noticeable if one wasn’t familiar with Techno’s subdued microexpressions, worry shined in his eyes. But they left, one after the other, regardless.

And Phil was alone with Tommy and Tubbo. 

Huh, strange that this was the first time for that.

Alright.

He’d done this before, with more success than Techno and Wilbur—if he put his mind to it, he’d been able to warn Gran from time to time, when necessary, with full words and everything. It was, after all, the main reasons she’d called that crackpot ghostbuster on them in the first place—that, and Wilbur’s normal hijinks, of course. Hopefully, this would work the same, minus the sage-scented aftereffect. At the very least, he knew it was possible, with Tubbo much more so than Tommy, to get it through.

Phil took a moment to steel himself, hovering off of the roof in front of where Tommy and Tubbo stood, letting out a nonexistent breath in one big old huff. It didn’t take volume, in his experience—though it did help, Phil didn’t think he needed it—and volume was usually Wilbur’s thing anyways. Instead, he just stood there, and he raised his voice just a bit, his words clear and concise over the wind.

“Boys,” he said, trying his hardest to meet Tubbo’s eyes, “please get off the roof.”

Nothing. 

Tubbo frowned at something Tommy said, his brows dropping low even as his eyes gleamed with amusement. Tommy went on talking about something. Phil paid them little mind—just as with their conversation earlier, there were bigger things to attend to here. He could listen to them bicker when Tubbo wasn’t one strong gust of wind away from falling 30 feet.

“Boys, listen to me.” A bit louder, this time, his tone more urgent. “Please, just get off the roof.”

Still, nothing. Tubbo took the time to respond to Tommy’s comment, mouth now curving into a smile as he spoke. He stood up a little straighter as he did it, turning just a bit to face Tommy—his unsteady back foot shifted, just barely. It was enough to put Phil, somehow, even more on-edge.

Great. This was going to be harder than Phil had thought. 

“Children,” he tried again, now almost yelling, “Please get off the roof. Jesus christ, you’re going to get yourselves hurt.”

Still, nothing.

Or-

Wait.

Tubbo paused for a moment, blinking hard and trailing off in the middle of his sentence. Then, he jerked back a little, head swiveling away from Tommy and back out over the edge of the roof—the direction Phil happened to be floating in.

Tommy was ignorant to it all, still peering at the horizon and the empty fields of grass as if they had personally offended them. “Tubbo, I still don’t see shit.”

At that, Tubbo turned to look at Tommy. Again. And, again, with the motion, his back foot shifted. Another look back to the horizon, once Tommy was done airing his complaints—jesus christ, could Tubbo not sit still for one second while Phil sorted this out—and the thing had slid down far too much, half of Tubbo’s body weight braced against where one roof tile jutted out against the next. “Well, it has to be here. Right?” Tubbo asked, still oblivious to his perilous situation.

“Nope,” Phil said, floating out into Tubbo’s field of vision. “You won’t find it. Get off the roof.”

Tommy steamrolled on. “I don’t know, I can’t _see it_.”

“I mean, it’s not like it just disappeared,” Tubbo said, shrugging. 

“Boys,” Phil said, hovering closer, “you won’t find the greenhouse like this. There’s a path, for christ’s sake. Please get off the roof before you hurt yourselves.”

Tubbo, now, chose to cast a slight, almost unconscious glance in Phil’s direction—though he didn't seem to realize it. He just tilted his head towards Phil, going on as if-

As if he’d heard what Phil said.

Though Tubbo’s eyes lifted up towards where Phil was, he was responding as if he were talking to Tommy—even though Tommy was on the opposite side of him, his voice a lot whinier. Tubbo’s limbs just moved faster than his thoughts, faster than any part of him could process why he’d just heard a voice, and he answered. “A path?” he said. “Tommy, what are you-”

A pause.

Tubbo’s brain caught up with the rest of him. And he froze, stiffening, eyes darting up in Phil’s direction. “What the…”

 _There_ it was. 

Phil stared, for a second—he had to admit, he was surprised that it’d worked like this. He was surprised it’d worked at all, given those first attempts. It was definitely harder with Gran, but still.

Tubbo’s eyes went, just barely, wider. “Tommy?” he started, panic in his voice, and yes, his pupils were almost, _almost_ focused on where Phil was floating, just barely off of the roof shingles, in front of him. “ _Tommy?”_

Tubbo’s head whipped back to Tommy.

His back foot shifted with the sudden movement.

And, as if just to taunt Phil:

That god damned thing slipped.

In a flash, Tubbo’s feet were out from under him, and Tubbo was tumbling down the roof.

In that moment, several things seemed to happen at the same time:

“ _Shit.”_ Phil grabbed for Tubbo. He just forgot about the ghost thing, curses flying from his mouth. 

And, predictably, Tubbo just slipped through his arms.

Next: Tommy turned around, too slowly, catching on the movement in the corner of his eye. “Tubbo? What the-”

All while Tubbo’s hands clawed at the tiles, his eyes wide in fear, trying to grab onto anything to keep himself from falling down. He cried out, a loud “ _Tommy!_ ” that sent shivers down Phil’s spine, but he slid all the same, sliding and sliding down and down and down.

Until he was dangling three stories over the ground. 

At the last moment, his hands caught on a row of tiles sticking out from the rest, arms shaking as he fought to hold on. “ _Tommy!"_ he called again, breathing hard, his arms shaking as he tried to pull himself up. “Tommy, _help!"_

“ _Tubbo,_ no!” Tommy lunged forward, running bow-legged down the roof until he was crouched at the edge, one hand splayed out and one reaching out. He tried to grab at Tubbo, leaning down the roof to try to take his hand. 

But he didn’t note where his center of gravity was.

Phil tried to grab at Tommy’s shirt, forgetting himself again. He held it for a second, but then Tommy’s weight was moving, his body shifting forwards.

And so, as Tubbo clasped one of Tommy’s hands in his, fingers scraped and bleeding from the slide, Tommy lurched forward. His eyes went wide.

“Shit- fuck- _Tommy_ _!_ ” Phil yelled, floating fast and trying, trying to grab him. But just as before, Tommy slipped through his fingers.

And Phil stood there, helpless, as the boys fell off the roof.

He just… stood there. They tumbled on down, Tubbo falling first and Tommy right in his wake, and-

And Phil could do nothing, his breath high in his throat as he was forced to watch. As he heard them land with a sickly _thump_ -

-into a bush.

A… bush?

A bush.

Phil blinked hard.

It took a moment—a long, long moment—for him to realize what had just happened. Phil stared, peering down at the boys as they lay there, frozen, on the overgrown bushes on the front walk. He was breathing hard, his stomach sunken into his chest, panic racing through his non-existent heart. And, oh goodness, the house shook with him. It felt tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for whatever had just happened to catch up with him and- and-

Tommy’s eyes were wide. Tubbo still hadn’t moved, the rise and fall of his chest the only indication that the fall hadn’t killed him. The fall wouldn’t have been comfortable—the bushes were prickly, chosen for their low maintenance rather than their gentle nature—and the two of them were still, obviously, far from fine. 

But they just lay there for a long, long moment, their minds struggling to catch up, just as Phil’s did, with the fact that they weren’t mush on pavement.

Until, after that long moment finally gave way—

Tommy started laughing. 

He just started… laughing.

He sat there, tangled up in the limbs of that bush, and he laughed, loud and breathless as ever. 

A moment more, and Tubbo was laughing along with him, the fear liquidating into tired, clear relief as they lay there on the bushes that probably saved them from a ride to a&e, or worse.

Phil couldn’t help his own laugh, even as Tommy pushed himself upright, clutching his shoulder with one arm and helping Tubbo up with the other. They were a bit hurt—Tommy winced as Tubbo pulled him into a hug, and they both were covered in scrapes and bruises—but they were okay.

Fuck. 

They were laughing. They were okay, thank goodness, but… fuck. Phil was struggling with it, and he hadn’t even been the one to fall. He took a deep breath, as he floated down to them.

As he came down near them, he felt a sudden wave of exhaustion overcome him, the relief giving way. The rush of it all finally caught up with him, the _realization_ of what he’d just done sinking in slowly, slowly, mocking him with the way it meandered on in.

Phil had—goodness, he’d messed up. But… for now, they were okay. They were smiling, and they were hurt, but- but they’d be okay.

They were okay… for now, they were okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve just realized I never included my timeline for this fic 0_0 oops. Techno and Wilbur were adopted by Phil at 10, Techno’s older by a couple months (I’m a sucker for Techno as the oldest lmao). Tommy was a baby when they were adopted, so he’s known them all of his life. This leaves about a 10 year age difference. Tommy last saw them at age 10/11 ish, when they were age 20 ish, and it’s been five years: currently, Tommy is around 16, they’re stuck at 20ish. Phil is just old. My brain only functions in groups of five so yeah!!!!!!! :D
> 
> Anyways,,,, hope y'all enjoyed!!!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guilt gets passed around, conclusions are drawn, and Tubbo asks a question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to call band-aids "plasters". I'm just quirky like that ;)
> 
> Also, I’ve recently come to the realization that I’m not sure I know what “fluff” is. I know it has to do with fun stuff, and it generally means there’s not going to be a plot…… but well, here we are, plotting ://///// ah well semantics, semantics.
> 
> Anyways, now that I’m done rambling: hope you guys enjoy!!!!! Slight CW this chapter, just for descriptions of pain/injury,,, it's not graphic just thought I'd mention :)

Tommy was very hurt. 

Tommy was also trying to hide that he was very hurt.

Generally speaking, they were both relatively okay, considering that they’d both just fallen off a roof. But while Tubbo was okay to just patch himself up and go on about his day, Tommy was… not.

Tommy sat there at the kitchen table, his arm clenched tight in his hand, teeth gritted, face pale as Tubbo peeled off band-aids and stuck them to the cuts on his cheeks. He’d tried to do it on his own, but quickly stopped when he found that he could barely move his shoulder, let alone well enough to put band-aids on with accuracy. So Tubbo was there, putting a SpongeBob band-aid where Tommy had scraped himself on the bush, Tommy sitting patiently (for him, at least) with his eyes closed. It wasn’t exactly fun for Tubbo, seeing his friend hurt and not being able to help much with it, but he was doing what he could.

He stuck one last band-aid in place, leaning away. “And… done.” 

Tommy’s eyes flicked open. He used his good arm to smooth his fingers over the last band-aid, before replacing his hand, in its new cradle, over his hurt shoulder. 

“Should I call a taxi now?” Tubbo asked, his eyes tracking the movement. “It shouldn’t take too long for me to band-aid myself, I don’t think.” It would take less time than it had for Tommy, he figured, but that was his only point of comparison. A handful of minutes, something around there.

At Tubbo’s words, though, Tommy blinked—his brows dipped low over his eyes, the band-aid along his hairline crinkling with the movement. “What?” he asked. “Why the hell would I need a taxi?”

“Well, we’re not walking to a&e, are we?” Tubbo tried on a slightly-nervous smile, laughing. He hoped, silently, that Tommy was just confused.

The hope was for nothing. 

“I didn’t realize we were going.” Tommy’s gaze hardened at Tubbo’s words.

This was going to be a bit harder than he’d thought, then—still, Tubbo was hopeful that there was something misunderstood in this. “Your shoulder’s obviously hurting you,” he tried again, his smile faltering. “We- we should go, right?”

Now, Tommy’s face just got a bit defiant. “Why- why the hell would we do that?” he said, shifting under Tubbo’s gaze. He let go of his shoulder, failing to hide a wince as he tried relaxing it to his side—an attempt at making Tubbo think it wasn’t hurting him, emphasis on _attempt,_ because it didn’t work. Not even for a second. 

Tubbo was aware that he could be a bit daft at times, but he wasn’t _stupid_. Tommy was proving him right, even.

Tubbo’s frowned deepend. “Tommy.”

“Shut up, Tubbo,” Tommy said. “I don’t need a doctor.”

Tommy was serious about this, then. Well, so was Tubbo. “I’m pretty sure you do.”

Then, in another blatant attempt to get Tubbo to stop fussing over his arm, Tommy tried to change the topic. “What about you?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

Tubbo looked up. “What? Of course I am.” He could fix himself up easily, now that Tommy was covered in SpongeBob characters; all Tubbo had to do was slap band-aids on the scrapes from the roof and the bushes, and he’d be fine. He had a couple larger bumps and cuts—the one on his cheek was stopped up with a napkin at the moment, and he figured that would make him bust out the gauze—but that was about it. It was nothing in comparison to the sorry state of Tommy, as he sat there and grimaced at the kitchen table. “You’re the one with the messed up shoulder.”

“It’s not- look, I probably just stretched it wrong, or- or it’s just bruised, or something,” Tommy argued, sitting up straighter in his chair. “It’ll be fine, stop being-”

“It’s probably _dislocated_ , Tommy,” Tubbo said, grabbing his phone from the counter. He could deal with his own little pains later. They did still have to call the taxi, after all. “We’re going to a&e.”

“No, no we’re _not_.” Tommy tried to grab Tubbo's phone, but, contradicting his own insistence that he was fine, failed miserably.

Tubbo ignored Tommy, opening up the app for a taxi service. He ordered one to come pick them up and take them to the nearest hospital, all before Tommy could get any more words in edgewise.

“Tubbo, I don’t need to go to a fucking hospital.”

Tubbo didn’t even glance up. “You do, Tommy.”

“No, I- I- don’t.” Tommy’s appeals took on a gentler, softer tone—goodness, Tubbo had seen him lay it on thick before, but this was a whole new level. “I don’t. I’m alright, really.”

Tubbo put his phone in his pocket, out of Tommy’s reach—Tommy had guessed his passcode a long time ago, and he wasn’t risking having Tommy cancel the taxi like this. They were going to a hospital, and that was that. 

Tubbo had made up his mind. “We’re going,” he said.

“But why? It doesn’t even hurt that much! Tubbo, look, I can-” Tommy tried to move his bad shoulder, but he’d barely moved it a centimeter before his good arm shot over to hold it still, his eyes wincing up of their own accord. “ _Shit_ ,” he muttered, slumping back into the kitchen chair with his teeth ground together. “Shit, shit, _fuck_. _Fuck._ ”

Tubbo just nodded at him. “Right,” he said. Sure, his sympathy was still there—what kind of person _wouldn’t_ feel bad seeing their friend like that—but it’d hidden away the second Tommy had started protesting. Tommy was being dumb, and that was that.

So instead of offering comfort, Tubbo turned away, back to the first aid kit dissected on the kitchen table. He grabbed an alcohol wipe and ripped it open, wincing as it touched his busted up finger tips, before taking it and finally beginning the process of cleaning himself up. 

Tommy went silent, his face pensive as he leaned sideways into the kitchen chair.

“We should probably call your mum,” Tubbo said casually, after a moment, as he wrapped a roll of bandages up his forearm. It wasn’t worth it to use most of the band-aids on each arm, and he doubted they’d fit over the long, wide scratches from his slide down the roof. Plus, he’d match Tommy—Tubbo had wrapped Tommy’s up just the same.

“Probably shouldn’t,” Tommy offered, quiet, tucked into himself.

“She’ll get a call from a&e any-” Tubbo stopped. “Oh.”

 _Oh_.

Oh.

He hadn’t even considered it. 

He’d been too focused on making sure Tommy was alright, too focused on the absurdity of what Tommy was requesting of him, to even consider _why_ Tommy had wanted to avoid the hospital. It’d completely passed Tubbo by, slipped his mind before it’d even properly entered it.

He turned to Tommy. Just to be sure.

“Is that it?” he asked.

“She’ll make us go home.” Tommy’s voice was quiet.

“She will?” Tubbo asked. As if he didn’t know Tommy’s mom, didn’t know that Tommy’s worry was completely founded—they hadn’t even been there a week, and they’d fallen off the roof. Of course she’d want them to leave, as soon as the a&e inevitably called her. He knew she wouldn’t want them there on their own anymore, not after this. Tubbo felt a bit… a bit dumb for not realizing it sooner.

Tommy confirmed his words anyway. “Yeah.”

Tubbo turned his attention back to his arm, setting the roll of gauze down to grab the tiny scissors from the kit and snip through. He secured it with a small piece of medical tape, ignoring the red splotches already springing up all over the white fabric, and started on his other arm, going in with another alcohol wipe.

They couldn’t _not_ go to a hospital. There was something wrong with Tommy’s shoulder, and trying to deal with it on their own simply wouldn’t be enough—it would only make things worse in the long run. The damage had already been done, and at this point, there was no way Tommy’s mum wouldn’t find out.

Tubbo’s face creased in thought. “I can… I can talk to her?” he tried, turning back to Tommy as he wrapped. It was- there wasn’t much else they could do at this point, but it was worth a shot, right?

Tommy, suddenly quite sullen, offered up a half-hearted half-shrug.

It was a pity solution, a consolation that wasn’t worth much.

Suddenly, Tubbo felt bad for being the one to slip, felt guilty for being the one that might’ve ended everything so soon after it had started. He’d fallen first, he was the one that made Tommy go tumbling down too. 

Then again, there was that… _whatever_ he’d see up there on the roof, whatever he’d heard that had scared him in the first place. He had his suspicions, but they didn’t matter at the moment. Instead, he just voiced his apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it in more ways than one. Sorry, for calling the taxi to get them to the hospital, and sorry that he was the reason they had to call it in the first place. Sorry as a whole, really.

Tommy offered a shallow nod, his jaw still clenched up tight. “It’s alright.”

At that, for lack of anything else to do, Tubbo kept on trying to perform first aid on himself before the taxi came to take them away. 

In the meantime?

The guilt settled, heavy, on his shoulders.

_______

The two boys took a taxi to the hospital, Tubbo talking quickly on the phone with Tommy’s mum as Tommy held his shoulder closely, eyes dreary and tired. In their wake, unbeknownst to them, they left a trio of shocked, silent, and guilty ghosts.

That is: a shocked Wilbur, a silent Techno, and a very, very guilty Phil.

“Dad, are you okay?” Wilbur asked, coming forward. Techno lingered behind, standing right outside the front door of the house, the door closed and locked behind them now that the boys were gone. Not that that mattered much.

Phil was staring after the taxi, the dust of the driveway still settling around them.

He knew they’d be back, and yet…

That was close. That was _way_ too close. They were so close to hitting the ground and not getting back up—if those bushes had been properly trimmed, it was very likely that one of them would have hit something vital. It’d been less than a week since they’d arrived, and already one of them was headed towards the hospital. Phil knew it was an honest mistake—it wasn’t as if he’d _wanted_ Tubbo and Tommy to fall off the roof—and he was just happy beyond belief that it hadn’t resulted in a worse outcome. 

But Phil knew his sister, or at least, was sure of how she’d react. She was relatively hands-off as a parent, very trusting of her son—Phil had been the same way when Techno and Wilbur were Tommy’s age—but falling off a roof was a bit more than either of them would accept. 

Even though Tommy and Tubbo were relatively okay, he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d be sticking around, now.

He turned from the driveway, back towards his sons. “I’m okay, Will. Don’t worry about me,” he said.

Over Wilbur’s shoulder, Techno’s face was set in a grim line, his arms crossed over his chest. There was something conflicted, something Phil couldn’t even identify, lurking in the shadows the sunlight cast over his eyes.

Phil met his gaze, for a moment. 

Then, he glanced towards the ground, broke the eye contact with a quick blink. Still, Techno was silent, something unspoken in the way his eyes watched Phil.

Yeah, Wilbur didn’t need to worry about him—Phil was fine, if just a bit shaken, a bit guilty about the whole thing.

It was Tommy and Tubbo they needed to be worrying about.

____________

The taxi ride was relatively quiet, a far cry from the usual loud chatter between the two boys. 

They sat in the backseat—Tommy was tucked up tight, coiled around his left shoulder with an ice bag pressed to the joint, while Tubbo sat in the middle seat, knees pulled up to his chest while Tommy leaned on him with his good shoulder. Tommy was upset with Tubbo for making him go to the hospital, and Tubbo seemed upset that Tommy was upset with him, but they were curled up together in the taxi’s back seat nonetheless.

Tubbo had just wrapped up his conversation with Tommy’s mum. It went about how Tommy expected it would—though, rather astoundingly, his mum seemed less inclined to start yelling with Tubbo on the other end of the line. 

Still, it was anyone’s guess what would happen next. The rest of the summer had gone up in the air when they’d gone up on that roof, and it hadn’t quite come back down, even when they had. Which they had, obviously. That was the whole _bad_ thing about the situation.

So there they sat, in the back of the dim taxi. Tommy tried his hardest not to look like he was in as much pain as he was actually in, as much as he wanted to just let it go and start swearing at every bump of the car. He kept it in—Tubbo had started up with that dumb face he always wore when he was overthinking something, a harsh contrast to the bright mélange of SpongeBob characters covering his skin, and the last thing Tommy wanted was to make him worry _more_ about the state of his shoulder.

Instead, they were quiet for a while. Tommy was too tired to put up that overly-dramatic caricature he played up around Tubbo, because his shoulder fucking _hurt_ , and Tubbo was too busy getting wrapped up in his own head. The hum of the taxi, its driver solemn and silent since being given the address, filled the space.

Until, eventually.

Tubbo broke the silence.

“Tommy?” he asked, his voice quiet. It was a nice reprieve from the thinking face, as he glanced away from the window, where he’d been watching the trees and fields fly past. It still wasn’t good—Tommy didn’t think any of this was fucking _good_ —but hey, he would take what he could get, right? A not-thinky Tubbo was a better-off Tubbo, as far as he was concerned. And, while Tommy was still upset at the whole situation, was still in the midst of pinning that upset on Tubbo, he would still oblige.

And so Tommy looked up at him. “Yeah, Tubbo?”

“What did your uncle look like?”

What?

Tommy stared, not sure if he’d heard it right. His shoulder hurt quite a bit, maybe the weird question was just- just Tommy hearing things? Or seeing things? Maybe he’d hit his head. “What?” he asked.

“Your Uncle Phil, I mean. What did he look like?”

“Tubbo, that’s a really weird question.”

Tubbo just stared at him.

Tommy would try again, then. “Like, really fucking weird.”

“It’ll make sense, I promise,” Tubbo paused. “I think. Just- just tell me.”

There was something off, something a bit _loony_ about Tubbo’s tone.

Normally Tommy wouldn't be so inclined to just pop out a description of his dead uncle—normally, Tommy would've closed up tight, like a clam or some shit, and refused to utter a word. But, with Tubbo's thinking face inching back into place and the taxi that smelled of old cigarettes and the way his shoulder just seemed determined to kill him with every jostle of the seat, the words popped right out. 

Mostly, though, he was just too tired to bicker about it. Tubbo could get just as stubborn as Tommy could, when he wanted to.

“Uh…" Tommy started, his voice low. "I don’t know- he wasn’t tall. Blond, very pale, I don’t think the man ever got any sun, and uh- he always wore this fucking- fucking green striped hat,” Tommy said. He didn’t remember the specific parts of his uncle’s face very well, if he was being honest—he’d been ten, bordering on eleven the last time he’d seen him in person, and the pictures his mom had showed him were all a couple years old, in his defense.

Tommy was about to go on, about to ask Tubbo why in the world he was asking about Phil. Why, in the backseat of a nasty old taxi, after they'd both just nearly _died_ , Tubbo saw it fit to talk about Tommy's dead family. And it wasn’t even a normal question—not _what were they like_ or _how old were you when they died,_ or any normal shit. It was _what did Phil look like?_

But alas, he didn't get the chance.

Because, for god knows what reason, Tubbo went pale. 

Suddenly, Tommy wanted the thinky face back. It was better than whatever _weird_ shit this was. 

“Tubbo, are you alright? Is something wrong?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter, worry building up strong in the back of his throat. For fuck’s sake, he was tired, and he was in pain. He didn’t want to deal with this. “Really, Tubbo-”

“I think-” Tubbo lowered his voice to a whisper, despite the thick pane of plexiglass separating them from the driver, “-I think I saw him. On the roof.”

Tommy blinked once, twice. “You _what?_ ”

“I _saw_ him.” Tubbo raised his voice a bit, glancing at the driver for a second before turning back to Tommy—he was fucking _paranoid_ about it, for goodness’ sake. “He was trying to help us, I think, when we were on the roof. It scared me, that’s why I fell.” 

What?

Tommy’s brow dropped over his eyes. “Tubbo, I think you hit your head.”

“It was before we fell, though! I’m serious Tommy, I _saw_ him,” Tubbo said, sitting upright in his seat, talking quickly once again. “I thought I heard someone talking, but I didn’t see anyone up there but you and me. And then I heard it again, and I _saw_ someone, and it scared me, and I slipped. And whatever it was tried to catch me, I think.”

Tommy stared, eyes widened in disbelief. “It looked like my dead uncle?”

“They were blond, and they had a striped green hat, like- like one of those bucket hats all the rappers wear. Was your uncle’s like that?”

It was.

But Tommy didn’t want to say that. Instead, some part of his brain wondered, exactly, what Tubbo was talking about—maybe he’d- maybe it’d been the stress? And he’d seen an old picture of Phil around the house? Or- or maybe he _had_ hit his head, before they got up there? 

Because how else would he- 

It was ridiculous. It was utterly, fucking ridiculous.

“Tubbo, what the fuck are you talking about,” Tommy said. 

“I _swear_ , Tommy. I saw him!”

“That’s-” he started, but then the car hit a bump, and he winced, gripping the bag of ice a little tighter against his shoulder. A wave of nausea overcame him, stronger with every second the car ride went on, the more his shoulder moved—fuck, he was tired, and his shoulder fucking hurt. And so, stopping himself, he swallowed hard, sitting very stiffly back in his seat. “Can we talk about this later?” he tried, “I don’t think-”

Tubbo’s eyes went soft—Tommy could see the moment he noticed the state of him. Tommy figured he made quite a picture, his face all pale and his hand all tight over the half-melted ice bag. “Oh,” Tubbo said, nodding softly. “Yeah, of course.”

And with that, they settled back into silence. Tommy was back to leaning against Tubbo’s side, the ice bag pressed to his shoulder. The taxi kept on driving along, the driver (hopefully) oblivious to the insanity of their conversation. Tommy found himself wishing he'd taken a painkiller before hopping along with Tubbo's hospital plan, but it was too late for that, now wasn't it? Instead of complaining, though, he just closed his eyes and went back to as he was. Tubbo seemed to do the same.

Separately, both of them wondered what in the world it was that Tubbo actually saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall leeeeeaaavvveeeee heheheee,,,,,
> 
> Interesting bit of info: so like, did y'all know that bucket hats kinda emerged from like,,, [rappers in the 80s](https://www.crfashionbook.com/fashion/a21967443/history-of-bucket-hat-fashion/)? Because I didn't until a little while ago. That's why, even though there is absolutely no reason for Tubbo to associate bucket hats with rappers, he does. I could not resist imparting it upon y'all u_u philza minecraft is just the greatest rapper of our generation what can I say u_u /j


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy's adventures in a&e, ft. a surprise!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about hospitals,,,, the last time I went to one was when I was like 8 and it was a children’s hospital, it wasn’t an emergency, and they let me take a stuffed cat (her name was Dr. Kitty, and I still have her) in with me. So uhh,,,, yeah. I did research on wait time for UK hospitals though, cause I geek out over that kinda stuff, and it was less than 4 hours for 88.0% of people in 2019 so uh yeah that’s all I know. Source is [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235968/), read if you want I guess,,, 
> 
> Have y'all noticed that I just like doing html links yet? Because it's taken me until now to realize it and uhhh I think I have a problem. Anyways, go [here](https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp) to learn how to do it,,
> 
> Anyways, this chapter was a BITCH. I rewrote most of it, and I split what I did actually use of the original stuff up into two. Actually,,,, I think I wrote the entire second part this afternoon. I mean,,, I think I like it, but it's just,,,,,,, I'm so glad it's done. So so glad. Hope you enjoy!!!!! <3

Tommy fell asleep in the waiting room. 

He’d kept himself awake in the taxi, grit his teeth and shut up as the doctors poked and prodded at him, and stumbled out into the waiting room afterwards without complaint—so hey, he figured he deserved it. His shoulder didn’t fucking _hurt_ as much as it had before, hospital staff was taking their sweet time allowing them to, you know, _leave_ , and Tommy simply wouldn’t stand for it.

Or, well. 

He wouldn’t _sit_ for it—the waiting room had those shitty plastic chairs that made his back hurt, sure, but he wasn’t waiting standing up. Fuck no. He’d done enough for the day- for _three_ , really.

To put it simply: after everything with the roof and the taxi and the hell that was the first hour in the waiting room, the hospital room had been beyond exhausting. Tubbo hadn’t been considered “family” enough to be allowed back, leaving Tommy tense and nervous and in pain all on his own as the hospital staff dragged him about the place. He’d jumped when the nurse put an IV in his arm—even though that was _stupid_ because he didn’t need it, it was just his _shoulder_ for fuck’s sake, he didn’t need painkillers if it meant not getting a _shot_ in his arm—and he just hadn’t been able to get his jaw, his fist, his good shoulder to unclench, even when the nurse ordered him to. 

Half an hour of suffering later, he’d walked out into the waiting room with a sling around his arm.

It _had_ been dislocated, they said. A pop back into place (which fucking _hurt_ ; he’d suddenly realized why they’d bothered with the drugs), and they were telling him to keep the sling on for a week and avoid doing anything intense for a couple more, stressing with utmost importance that he keep the joint still as much as he could. He was, apparently, lucky he hadn’t broken anything, lucky that those bushes had been there to break the fall. 

If this was really what “lucky” felt like, Tommy was going to scream at those doctors the first chance he got.

On his other arm, in the crook of his elbow, there was a bright purple bruise where they’d stuck the IV, nestled alongside the doctor-approved SpongeBob band-aids. They’d redone a couple of the bandages, because of course Tommy just wanted to be attacked _more_ by medical staff, but nonetheless, the SpongeBob band-aids had persisted. Tubbo had loved to see it, that was for sure.

Back to the point, though. Tommy wasn’t moving unless he had to.

Tubbo could manage the paperwork, anyways. 

At least.

Tommy was pretty sure that’s what they were waiting for. 

To be honest, he still wasn’t entirely certain why they were sitting in the hospital doing nothing. At some point, he’d just assumed it had something to do with the clipboard plopped, awaiting personal information and signatures, in Tubbo’s lap. And Tommy wasn’t about to rush Tubbo, no way; Tubbo’s shoulder was _way_ too good of a pillow for that. 

Plus.

Well, the painkillers hadn’t quite worn off yet, leaving Tommy a tad bit… _dizzy_. He didn’t particularly feel like putting much thought to anything at the moment. He would accept that there was a clipboard, and he would not question why Tubbo was just sitting there not filling it out, as long as it meant that Tubbo wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.

And so, his head slumped onto Tubbo’s shoulder, his eyes finally staying shut this time, Tommy just about passed out, his stubborn want to stay awake giving out once and for all.

And, well.

It was kind of a mistake. 

Because, you see:

Tommy woke up slowly. With a groan. In the middle of the waiting room, with all these half-dead people slouched over in identical plastic chairs.

And there was someone _laughing_ at him.

“Oh, Tommy,” the laugher said, their voice soft. “That’s no way to-”

Tommy waved a hand in the direction of the voice. “ _Shut up_ , Tubbo,” he said. For fuck’s sake, could he not just get some decent sleep for once? It wasn’t like they had anything better to be doing at the moment. There was a hand on his knee, a person crouched down in front of him—there were plenty of fucking chairs, why was Tubbo _still_ trying to be all clingy and shit?—and he tried to push them away.

At that, there was a different voice from his side. Tubbo was back (back? Had he moved that fast?) in his chair, and now he was responding to Tommy’s complaining, and Tommy honestly didn’t have the energy for it. 

The hand was still on his knee, still trying to be reassuring. He shoved it off with a huff, tucking his knees up against his chest instead. “Gerroff me,” he said.

A laugh, this one different from the first. “I think he’s a bit out of it,” Tubbo said, to- who? Was Tubbo talking to him?

Tommy found he didn’t care. At that moment, he really just wanted to go back to sleep. “‘M not ‘out of it,’” he said. “Fuck off, before I- before I-” His head went blank, his words falling off into nothing as his thoughts tapered away just as quickly as they’d come. Tommy slumped back onto Tubbo, his eyes still stubbornly shut.

The powers that be, unfortunately, seemed to have other plans. Because of fucking course they did. 

The first voice—a woman’s, now that Tommy thought about it—piped in, gentle and soft and definitely not Tubbo. “Come on Tommy,” she said. “Time to wake up.”

What? “Mum?” he asked, confused. It didn’t _sound_ like his mum’s voice, but there was no way the hospital staff would have this kind of patience with him. And she was, undoubtedly, the one they would’ve called.

Another laugh, a bit more gentle than the first. “Close,” the woman said.

Tommy finally caved. He tried, all at once, to get the sleep out of his eyes. A blink, then another, and-

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Oh, he was _fucked_.

His mum was absolutely livid, wasn’t she?

Standing in front of him, a smile on her face, was Tommy’s aunt. 

His Aunt Kristin, to be precise.

Well, she wasn’t officially his aunt. She and Phil had dated for a good bit, and they’d been planning for her to move to England and move in, an engagement ring wrapped tight around her finger, for a good couple of months. They’d set it up to be as soon as Techno’s fencing season, full of hectic weekends travelling about the country, was over. 

As it turned out, the delay had been a blessing—it’d saved her life. It was why she hadn’t been there the night of the fire, why she’d spent that time waiting for a red-eye out to the UK instead.

Years had passed, and she and Tommy’s mum had grown close. Though Kristin had had no real ties to Tommy’s family after the fire had swept away with Phil, she’d been sucked in nonetheless. 

And, hey, Tommy liked her. He was happy she was there. She’d met Tubbo before, which was more than he could say for his late uncle. Sure, her presence meant Tommy was absolutely, utterly _fucked_ —Tommy knew his mum, and this was a surefire sign she hadn’t trusted herself to handle the situation calmly, had sent the level-headed aunt in her stead—but it made everything a bit easier to deal with. Kristin looked exactly as she had when he’d seen her last, not too long ago.

And, as Tommy recognized her, she smiled. “There you go,” she said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy recognized an unfamiliar figure—a nurse, dressed in sterile blue scrubs, their eyes impatient. 

Right.

He was in a&e. 

Oh.

Shit.

_He was in a &e. _

“Okay, I know- you know, I know this looks bad,” he started, trying trying _trying_ to get the explanation out past his too-heavy tongue. His eyelids were still heavy, the words fuzzy. “But I can- we can explain. We can- we can explain.”

Kristin blinked, confusion crossing her face for just a moment. Then, there was the realization, the smile fading just slightly, the words popping out of her mouth. “Tommy, we’ll talk about it-”

Tommy knew, in hindsight, that this was the worst possible time to plead his case. His words were as dulled as his brain felt, and to be honest, he really just had no idea what the hell they’d pumped him full of. In hindsight, giving the nurse a 10 on the pain scale had been a bad idea. Sure, his shoulder didn’t hurt much anymore, but on the other hand, he also was fairly certain he couldn’t feel anything else either.

But there were important matters to attend to, and they would need to be attended to right that instant, right as a strange sort of fear spiked through Tommy’s brain. Or, well, it was sort of irrational, too—it was on the mind, at least, and Tommy’s drugged up head saw it as a now-or-never kind of deal. So, now it was.

After all, Aunt Kristin meant his mum was mad. His mum being mad meant there was a near certainty he and Tubbo were getting sent home. And going home meant the whole summer was _ruined_ and they wouldn’t get to goof off on their own, and Tommy would have to leave the house when he was just starting to feel better about it, and- and there was just so _much_ to do, so many reasons to stay.

Of course, Tommy’s head was not in a state capable of handling that much information. So, without any care for the time or place or situation he was in, Tommy’s words shot out of his mouth, shaky and slow.

“No!” He yelled. Eyes from around the waiting room came to him, the nurse’s foot starting to tap as they stood there and waited out his antics. “We should- let’s talk about it now.” He nodded, mostly to himself. “I want to talk about it now.”

Kristin’s whole face, all at once, seemed to just _melt_ for him. Goodness gracious, the woman was handling it so graciously that Tommy felt a bit guilty for even trying to plead his case.

But then, Tubbo was _there_ . “Tommy. Hush,” Tubbo hissed, lowering his voice. Then, he picked it back up to a normal volume, his eyes directed back towards Kristin. “I’m sorry, they- uh, they gave him a _lot_ of drugs, Ms. Kristin. He’s a bit delirious-”

Tommy shoved Tubbo away with a flail—oh, what a graceless movement it was—in his direction. “No, I’m not fucking- delirious and shit! Shut up!”

“Tommy, please.” Tubbo was pleading now.

But Tommy wasn’t having it, even though he knew, somewhere in his head, that it would be best if he just shut up until the drugs wore off. Honestly, he was starting to think his own consciousness was working against him at this point. “Aunt Kristin, look- look at this,” Tommy said, sitting up a little straighter. “It was- Tubbo said it was Uncle Phil’s fault. He scared him, so he _fell!”_ he tried, turning to Tubbo. “Right?”

“What?” Kristin’s eyes glinted with confusion. “Toby, do you know what he’s talking about?”

“I think he’s just- just _really_ out of it,” Tubbo said. "And, uh- it's 'Tubbo,' please."

Tommy stared at Tubbo for a long, long moment. Of course, of course Tubbo would dismiss this _perfect_ defense—the one Tubbo had already told him about in the taxi ride, when he’d asked all those weird questions and said those weird words—like it was _nothing_. 

Tommy opened his mouth to object, the words roiling and battling to get out all at once, his head struggling to keep up with them, and _fuck_ he wasn’t going to remember any of this and he was going to probably regret it anyways, wasn’t he-

But, before Tommy could keep on spitting nonsense, the nurse, at long last, butt in. 

They leaned in close to Kristin, their eyes darting between her and Tommy. “Ms?” they asked.

Kristin’s brow rose back up to its normal spot, and she turned away from Tommy and his nonsense words, back to the reason she was there to begin with: so they could leave. 

The nurse went on, “We can forward the paperwork later, if you would like to take him home first?” There was a hint of amusement in their voice now, mixing with slight annoyance. Tommy had no idea what _that_ meant.

Kristin quickly nodded. “That would be fantastic, thank you.”

At that, everything became a whirlwind of incomprehensible movement. Kristin handed the clipboard back to the nurse, who was still glancing at Tommy with amusement in their eyes every so often, as they explained how to take care of his shoulder over the next couple of days. He caught glimpses of the conversation—ibuprofen or tylenol when needed, the max dosage, other bits and bobs of information—but, very quickly, he found himself lost, unable to see the point. Somewhere along the line, the nurse, Kristin, and Tubbo all started laughing, and Tommy found himself unable to understand a single bit of it, just slumped over in his chair while the world went on. 

Just to be a problem about it, he frowned, deeply, and tried to keep his eyes open. He wouldn’t be complicit in his own confusion, goddamnit. 

After all that, they were on their way out. Finally.

Tommy wandered along with Kristin’s hand at his back to guide him, still halfway high on the painkillers, but smart enough to get Tubbo’s cue to _shut up_ for now. Gone were the cool walls of the hospital; in their place was the almost-sticky heat of the sun on the asphalt parking lot. 

It wasn’t long before they’d reached the car—the same one Tommy remembered she’d always had, with the sticker on the back window and the little ding in the bumper—and Kristin helped him in with gentle hands, talking about something he couldn’t make out, laughing at Tubbo’s words as she softly buckled in his seatbelt around the sling and closed the door.

The car smelled familiar, comforting. Like many things about Kristin, he liked it.

______

Tubbo snapped up the front seat this time—he’d been an armrest enough for one day, he figured. Any longer, and he swore he was going to grow a callus.

Plus, he figured Tommy would- 

Yup.

Tommy passed out, once again, as soon as they got him into the car. Tubbo had barely buckled his seatbelt, glancing back to ask Tommy how he was doing, before Tommy’s eyes had slipped shut all over again.

Given how he’d acted in the waiting room, half-awake and mumbling half his words, Tubbo was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Tubbo hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of the chart the nurse had given him—with the long drug names and procedures spelled out in incomprehensible combinations of mixed up latin, the Times New Roman just small enough to mock him—but he figured whatever they’d pumped Tommy full of had been a bit too high of a dosage. All in all though, it was a bit relieving to hear Tommy’s soft snores and see his head slumped against the cool glass of the window.

Plus.

Well, that had been one mess of a situation. Tubbo had _not_ expected to play referee for a drug-induced Tommy, making up whatever excuses he could and blurting them out to Kristin in a way that, he was sure, was not believable. Tubbo knew he wasn’t a good liar, but Tommy had forced the issue. And now, they were most likely in some kind of shit about it.

In fact:

As soon as Kristin started up the car, there were questions on her lips. He hadn’t even made it fifteen minutes.

“Now,” she said, in that patient tone she’d used with the half-delirious Tommy—only, now that he was on the receiving end of it, Tubbo wasn’t sure how much he liked it. “Do you know what in the world that was about?”

He chose the obvious option.

He played dumb: “What?”

Kristin chuckled. Yeah, Tubbo was definitely a bad liar. Maybe he’d played a bit _too_ dumb. “Tommy said Phil scared you off the roof,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Tubbo,” she said, her voice turning a bit more serious.

He sighed, shrugging his shoulders. And, in the best tone he could muster, said, “I don’t know.” 

It was partly true—Tommy hadn’t seemed to put a second of thought to Tubbo’s claims in the taxi, before he’d gone ahead and denied them and pushed them off to the side. So, really, Tubbo had no idea why Tommy had said what he’d said. Tubbo wasn’t even sure, anymore, that he hadn’t just spooked himself and imagined the whole thing. Telling Tommy so soon had probably been a mistake.

“Right.” Kristin hummed, something only slightly satisfied, but that seemed to be enough to appease the questions—for now, at least. She changed the topic. “How are you?”

Tubbo’s head jerked. “What?”

“Tommy’s a bit of an attention grabber, isn’t he?” she said, smiling and giving him a quick glance. Then, her eyes were focused back on the road. “How are you, To- Tubbo?”

He squirmed in his spot, not sure how to answer her. Tubbo wasn’t the one with the dislocated shoulder, wasn’t the one babbling about a dead uncle—he was fine, all things considered. With Tommy taken care of, for now, he felt a bit better. Nerves, about this whole situation, about what he’d seen up there on the roof, about the big possibility of them leaving, still burned at his consciousness—but he was okay with that, for now. He was managing. 

Still, his voice was slightly uncertain. “I’m- I’m good, I guess,” he said.

Kristin hummed again, this time in slight discontent—her hums were easy to read, and they were frequent. Tubbo was grateful. This conversation was tricky enough as it was, had his hands curling into the fabric of his pants with the nerves. Kristin was perceptive, and Tubbo knew he was far from subtle; the levelled out playing field was nice.

On the other hand… now he knew, pretty certainly, that Kristin hadn’t believed him in the slightest.

Right, then. “I’m tired,” he continued, in an attempt to dispel her suspicion. And it was true—his eyes were sagging now, too, and the tiredness catching up now that Tommy was handled and dozing away in the backseat. The quiet conversation was just making it worse, making the tired drag on right underneath his eyes stand out.

Well shit. He really was tired.

Kristin’s eyes softened. “It should be about twenty minutes,” she said. “If you want to get some rest.”

Tubbo shook his head. “No, I should-” A yawn interrupted him, his blinks getting longer and longer. His body was trying to make him think he didn’t have a choice here, but he- he did. “I shouldn’t, not right now,” he said. “I need to-”

“You’re making _me_ tired, Tubbo.” Kristin laughed softly—she laughed a lot, Tubbo noticed, and she smiled just as much. 

And, to be honest, he _was_ tired. Goodness- no, he was exhausted. It’d been a terribly long day, and the sun had yet to even set. Another yawn, and he acquiesced. “Maybe I- maybe,” he muttered, leaning against the window. “Are you sure?”

She smiled. “Get some sleep.”

He watched her from the corner of his eyes, blinking slowly. The car felt warm, right on the edge of hot, and it was making him relax more and more as the seconds ticked on.

“I’ll wake you up when we get there,” she said. “Promise.”

Sure. “If you promise.”

And with that, the events of the day finally caught up with him. Tubbo closed his eyes, slowly, enjoying the way the sunlight beamed down on him, all of the bandages slightly scratchy against his skin, his hair still mussed up from the fall—he was sure there was a leaf buried in there somewhere.

And, well.

He was out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look alright. Originally, I had actually written Tommy’s mom in, and she was solely referred to as Motherinnit. But that was weird and bad. So I changed it to Kristin, even though she doesn’t really come up again besides this chapter and the next. Also because having Kristin alive while Phil is dead is a lot angstier and I want you guys to suffer heeheeeehee >:D 
> 
> Also also Kristin is really sweet and we all love mumza but uhhh I probably wrote her weirdly because I’m not that familiar with her,,, I was there for the lettuce thing on Phil's stream, I watched the halloween video,,,,, but uh yeah she's kind of just a mom archetype the way I've got her at the moment. I hope she was a surprise, though!!!!! And I hope I did her kind of right!!!! And if you read this when I wrote her name as 'kristen' no you didn't <3
> 
> Side note: I'll probably update Thursday next week. School schedule will be awful until the two "mental health days" next week,,,,, I hate it hereeeeee /j


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kristin, Tommy, and Tubbo get back. Wilbur bears witness, some memories and feelings pop up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slams 3.5k of Wilbur POV down in front of you* take this, you depressed bitches.
> 
> No but actually hello alllll. I’ve returned B) I decided against uploading last Thursday because I had to rewrite most of this (it was originally Techno pov, and most of the dialogue was different, and I didn’t like it, and I also split off another chunk for the next chap (be happy, it would've caused pain)). Also,,, Are y'all sensing a common theme with me overhauling the Kristin chapters? Because I am, and I don’t like it,,,, hgnnnnnnghhghgh. Anyways hello I’m here it me I’ll resume my rambling in the end notes :P
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!! :D

In the past couple of hours, Wilbur found himself a bit annoyed. 

He was as worried as the next guy, don’t get him wrong—he’d only seen the aftereffects of Tommy and Tubbo’s tumble off the roof, and that’d been more than enough to make his brow crease in concern. But, between Phil’s stressed-out pacing and Techno’s passive, almost _smug_ refusal to help with it, Wilbur wasn’t left to do much else. He’d been trying to make light of the situation, to lighten the _mood_ the two of them were in, for the past couple of hours. 

He’d since given up, of course—he’d left Phil to watch the driveway from the front window, left Techno to sulk on his own. In the past hour, he’d gone on to play some songs, since he could do it without worrying about the children hearing and interfering. Still, though, Techno and Phil’s reactions nagged at the back of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to brush them off.

Naturally, Phil was the first one outside when that same old red car pulled up. 

The dust had just barely settled, Kristin’s familiar figure opening the car door for a woozy-looking Tommy, and out Phil went, a nervous smile all about. Tubbo emerged from the other side—from a distance, as he phazed through the house and floated down to the driveway, Wilbur could still spot those ridiculous SpongeBob band-aids stuck all over the place, the pink shadows underneath just barely visible in the sunlight.

Phil quickly flurried around Kristin, Tommy and Tubbo, practically mobbing them as their little procession went on towards the front door. “Oh, thank _fuck_ they’re okay,” he said.

Really, the tension seemed to just _melt_ out of him, at Kristin’s presence. Part of it had to do with the state of Tommy and Tubbo, sure, but Wilbur wasn’t quite sure the two of them were that remarkable on their own: Tommy was quiet, barely conscious, and Tubbo was still blinking sleep from his eyes in the bright sunlight. Kristin, in the little scene playing out before them, was center stage, and Phil was jumping at the chance to gaze upon her without the worry of scarcity.

That is: While Kristin was a more frequent visitor than Tommy, as was most everyone, Wilbur wouldn’t have called her a common sight around the place. _Gran_ had been a common sight—before she was zipped off, before Tommy and Tubbo were plopped in her place. Kristin, on the other hand, had only come by every once in a while. Wilbur didn’t blame her—she lived about an hour away, a few towns over from the rural hills they called home—but it didn’t make it any easier when she _did_ come over. 

Phil’s eyes still lit up at the sight of her, five years and many visits later.

She, of course, couldn’t see it. She didn’t even know it was a possibility for Phil’s eyes to, from beyond the grave, gaze after her. Instead, she remained predictably oblivious as she hassled Tommy and Tubbo in through the front door, using the same too-crowded key ring and cheap duplicate house key she’d always used, the deadbolt _thunk_ ing out of place.

Phil floated in after them. 

Wilbur opted to phase through the wall, Techno trailing behind him.

“Great,” he said, turning to Techno. “Now we have to hear the child complain _more_.”

Techno was silent, that look of silent criticism on his face, shrugging off Wilbur’s words as he turned away.

Wilbur rolled his eyes. 

Techno could be so _Techno_ sometimes. Frankly, it was starting to get on his nerves, the way he was acting now that Tommy and Tubbo had fallen off of a roof—no, that was wrong. Techno had been acting weird ever since Tommy and Tubbo had shown up. The events of the day, the look on Techno’s face as the taxi had carried Tommy and Tubbo off towards the hospital, had just exacerbated whatever it was.

But that was a thought for another time. He wouldn’t push it, nor would he push his awful joke, for now.

And so the three of them were left to do nothing but float there, silent, as Kristin settled Tommy into place. Phil was practically gawking—with the most gooey, sappy look on his face, Wilbur would note—and Techno gazed on with a strange scrutiny in his eyes, his brow creased slightly in thought, while Kristin lay Tommy down on the couch, extra mindful of the shoulder tucked into the hospital-issued sling, with a slight hum. Tubbo was chatting with her from over her shoulder, and she laughed along to his words, that familiar thing. 

It brought a slight smile to Wilbur’s face, this one a lot easier than the one from his joke before. He shook it off, though. It wasn’t the time for that.

From his place over towards the corner, Techno’s head jerked, that little crease still tucked between his brows. His eyes landed, scrutinizing, on Tubbo, with a deepening frown in his cheeks.

Wilbur couldn’t help his curiosity. He floated over. “Something up?”

Techno blinked, gaze unwavering. “Watch Tubbo’s eyes.”

Wilbur glanced over, and sure enough: Tubbo was glancing around more than he had before, his eyes searching for something. Probably Phil, if the incident on the roof was any indication. There was no doubt that Phil had been seen, at least partially—the rest of them were probably okay for now, but Tubbo was definitely skeptical of Phil, at the very least.

The thing was, Wilbur didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t like he’d been _subtle_ about his existence, nor had Phil. If Tommy and Tubbo figured it out, then they figured it out. 

Techno, however, did seem to care about this development.

That annoyance, like a slight little itch Wilbur couldn’t quite get rid of, popped up anew. Still, he just nudged Techno with his shoulder. “Stop worrying for once, would you?” he asked, trying on a smile. “He’s harmless.”

Techno’s frown turned into an annoyed grimace. But he said nothing, just let out a short, low _humph_ , before focusing back on every subtle twitch of Tubbo’s pupils, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

Wilbur frowned right back. Phil went on, eyes still only for Kristin.

Just then, Kristin had finished settling Tommy in, her quiet chatter with Tubbo dissolving into silence as her attention went about elsewhere. She just draped a dusty old blanket over Tommy, smiling to herself as Tommy curled up around it, and straightened up with a slight noise of self-content.

And, well.

At that, Tubbo immediately began pouring excuses. “Please don’t make us leave,” he started, words fast and tumbling over each other, slightly hushed in the presence of the quiet Tommy. In his haste, his hands buzzed about, hurried. “Ms. Kristin, I promise it was all my fault. It was- it was _me_ , not Tommy. I got scared, and I pulled Tommy down, we were just trying to find the greenhouse, and-”

“Tubbo,” Kristin said, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

He jumped slightly, but his eyes leveled out to meet hers. “Y- yeah?”

“Breathe,” she said. There was a soft smile on her face, and Tubbo just nodded, quiet numbly, right in response. 

Somewhere along the line, he remembered to actually follow her directions and, you know, breathe. At least, a little bit. He still looked just about ready to join Tommy and pass out on the couch, but he was steady enough, as Kristin’s hands fell from his shoulders. “Right,” he exhaled.

Wilbur chuckled. 

Techno and Phil gave him an odd look. But, in the end, they didn’t respond, and Wilbur was left to just roll his eyes again.

The two of them, he swore.

Kristin opened her mouth to respond to Tubbo, likely something along the lines of telling him to _actually_ breathe this time, but she stopped herself before the words could get out. Her eyes had caught on something over Tubbo’s shoulder.

Wilbur smiled. 

Though Techno would often claim otherwise, Wilbur had his moments of ingenuity. And, well, he’d always had a flare for the dramatics, anyways. If anything, Techno should’ve expected this; it was perfectly in-character, if he did say so himself.

That is: the back door was swung wide open, a very distinct and very familiar sword plopped on the table in front of it, acting as a somewhat crude arrow to point any eyes that gazed upon it out towards the yard. Techno frowned deeper, discontent very evident on his face as soon as he seemed to realize _what_ , exactly, Wilbur had used to point Tommy and Tubbo in the right direction.

It was Techno’s old sword, pointing out the open door, down the steps and out into the grass. The path, just as Phil had told him to make.

In Wilbur’s defense, he’d drawn a map and jammed it on the tip of the sword; it wasn’t like the sword _was_ the map. It was just the fastest thing he could think of, sure to catch their eyes.

And catch their eyes, it did.

“Did you open that?” Kristin asked, her eyes lingering on the open door and then, in a blink, on the sword displayed out before it. “Tubbo, did you go into the attic? Did you-” She stopped herself when she reached the table, taking Techno’s sword gently in her hands. Her eyes were wide, as her hands ghosted along the handle.

At Wilbur’s side, as soon as her fingers grazed the hilt, Techno tensed. 

Tubbo shook his head, quickly, shortly, at Kristin’s words. “No, we didn’t- I don’t even know where the attic is, and we- Ms. Kristin, we didn’t-” he tried to explain, but she wasn’t paying attention. He stopped, confusion quickly coloring his face. “Are we- are we not allowed up there?”

“No, no- of course you are, but…” Kristin had always seemed the type to know what to say—always, Wilbur could remember how she’d said exactly the words he’d needed to hear—and yet there she was, trailing off. She finished the sentence with a slight, unsure hum. “This shouldn’t be out here,” she said, turning the blade over in her hands, eyes scanning for scratches or nicks or bumps. “I thought Tommy would know better.”

Wilbur huffed a slight laugh. It was funny, having Tommy catch the blame for this. Sure, any explanation for the sword’s sudden appearance would work, come the end of the day—it wasn’t like Wilbur was about to _correct_ them, not that he was sure he could, even if he wanted to—but this was funnier.

The humor faded quickly, though, when Tubbo’s voice interrupted Wilbur’s thoughts. “What is it?” he asked, voice quiet.

“It’s- well. I suppose Tommy still calls him ‘Techno,’ that boy and his nicknames,” she said, her voice soft. She glanced over to Tubbo. “It’s Techno’s old sword. He was a fencer, the best in the country.”

Tubbo’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Wow.”

Kristin smiled, a slight laugh playing past her lips. She held the sword out to Tubbo, handle first. “You can hold it, if you like.”

Tubbo hesitated.

“It won’t bite, I promise.”

“A- alright,” he said. And then, silently, reverently, he took it. He fumbled with it for a moment—it seemed it was lighter than he’d expected it to be, and he overestimated how to hold it, hands shooting up just slightly in the air—but then it was settled gently in the palm of his hands, the worn leather soft.

Techno stiffened. His frown, already deep, turned into an uncomfortable grimace.

Wilbur recognized the sentiment. “C’mon. Don’t be a prick about it, Techno,” he said. His annoyance at Techno from earlier faded away. In its place, there was the smile on his face, the wish to preserve whatever gentle moment was passing between Kristin and Tubbo, as they spectated on from the side. His hand came up to Techno’s shoulder. “Let them be.”

“They’re messing with it.”

“I know, I know,” he said, letting his hand fall to Techno’s wrist, tugging him back. “Tommy played my guitar the other day! Hell, I play it all the time!” He smiled wider. “It’s weird, but you get used to it. They’re just curious.”

As if on cue, Tubbo traced his bandaged fingers softly along the edge of the blade, fabric tracing reverently over the steel. Techno tensed, teeth clenching as goosebumps raced up his arms from where they were crossed over his chest—he didn’t move, though. Wilbur nodded in approval, though he wasn’t sure Techno even noticed.

And it was worth it, when the next words slipped out of Tubbo’s mouth.

“It’s beautiful.”

Kristin took it back, as Tubbo offered it up. “He picked it out himself,” she said, setting it back down on the table. Wilbur’s crude map had fluttered to the floor, caught in the afternoon breeze flowing through the open door, unnoticed in favor of the artifact out in plain sight. “Phil said he went on about it for months, saving up and trying to figure out which one he wanted. He thought it was cute.”

In tandem, Wilbur and Techno turned to look at him.

Phil shrugged. “It _was_ pretty cute,” he said, his innocence as fake as could be. Wilbur couldn’t help his own smile, even as Techno squirmed in embarrassment next to him, translucent cheeks going a slight pink the same shade as his hair.

As always, Tubbo and Kristin went on, the three of them unnoticed.

“What was he like? Tommy’s uncle, I mean,” Tubbo asked, his voice lilting up with the question. “He doesn’t talk about him very much—him or his cousins.”

Kristin hummed. She did that thing she’d always done when she was thinking, wringing her hands back and forth, fingers running over each other, as they settled in front of her. It was a moment before she spoke, that slight crease in her brow growing as she mulled over her words. “It was a lot for Tommy, losing them,” she said, a slight sigh passing through her lips. “It was a lot for all of us, really.”

Tubbo nodded.

“I understand that he doesn’t like talking about them,” she continued, eyes wandering up to where Tubbo stood, beside her.

“Oh.” Guilt quickly overtook Tubbo’s face. “I-” His mouth opened, then shut, then opened anew. “I’m sorry- I didn’t know. I mean, I _assumed-_ ”

Kristin quickly shook her head. “No, no,” she said. A gentle smile lit up her face. “You’re only curious. It’s alright. But, I do think it would be best if Tommy told you himself, when he’s ready to.”

Tubbo nodded. “Right, yeah. Sorry.”

She smiled wider. “Don’t be,” she said. “I still miss them, sometimes. I’m sure Tommy’s the same.” Her gaze wandered out to the field just outside, through the wide-open front door and out to the grasses and flowers waving in the wind.

A moment passed between her and Tubbo, silent but not quite still. The curtains lining the windows, all around the room, waved slightly—the light linens tasted the breeze, lifting the dust and stiffness from the fabric just like that. Wilbur’s eyes caught on them, in the corner of his eyes, for a moment.

But then, his eyes were heading right back over, right as Tubbo nodded. “Can I- do you know how I can help?” Tubbo asked, his voice quiet. “I want to- I want to help. But, uh, it’s… it’s a lot.” He rubbed the back of his neck, an awkward chuckle popping out of his mouth.

Kristin perked up, at that. “A lot?”

“He, uh, _really_ doesn’t like to talk about them.” Tubbo shrugged. “I’ve been trying, but I- I’m trying. I don’t want him to- I’m not sure how it’s been going.” He chuckled again—goodness, the kid had a nervous habit. “I mean, he kind of fell off a roof because of it. So- uh, yeah.”

Kristin’s hand went to rest at Tubbo’s back, comforting. Out of the corner of his eye, Wilbur saw Phil smile—Wilbur remembered how Kristin used to do that, sometimes, enough that he could almost feel the phantom touch at the base of his own spine. 

“Hey,” she said. “It’s alright. It’s- Tommy’s tough, yeah, and he’s touchy when he wants to be. It isn’t something you can push.”

Tubbo’s eyes were to the floor, now.

“There was a long time where I couldn’t think of him- let alone _talk_ about him. Phil, Tommy’s uncle, I mean,” she went on, hand rubbing comforting circles, tugging Tubbo closer. It was an odd picture, what with the two of them standing around the same height, but Kristin seemed determined to make it work. “Tommy was close with all of them, closer than I think _I_ was. He’s… he’s taking his time.” She smiled. “He’s a bit slow, sometimes.”

Tubbo’s smile shed a bit of its nervousness. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

Kristin tugged him closer, even, a little jostle of his shoulders that made the fading smile on his face pick up just a bit—fuck, she’d always been good at comforting people, hadn’t she? 

Wilbur couldn’t help it, couldn’t help how suddenly he missed it. But, again, he brushed it off to the side.

“Really, I know you want to help, Tubbo, but you have to be patient with him,” she said, as the joke faded. “You’re helping how you like to. Tommy does things a bit different, is all.” Her gaze turned, her gentle smile fading ever-so-slightly. “We all do.”

There was still something sorrowful, something regretful, in the air—it was there in places Wilbur didn’t think to look, in the new wrinkles and smile lines he didn’t recognize on Kristin’s face, and it lingered in the look in Tubbo’s eyes. But still, the smiles stayed on their faces. Phil and Techno were still and silent, the wind died down and the curtains stopped their joyful sway in the breeze. 

Something in Wilbur suddenly wanted to be _known_ . He wanted to rush forward and pull Kristin into his icy hug, to let his fingers brush against something tangible and real, to just get on with it. Because, despite the visits and the old memories and everything that was different and new about her, he _missed_ her. He was positively _certain_ Phil did too—he had more of a right to than Wilbur did, really—and he knew that Techno probably felt something similar, try as he might to hide it, but Wilbur couldn’t help it. 

It was just like that itch, popping up all over again.

It was a little fly, buzzing around his head and picking away at him where it wanted to, bit by bit. Right then, as Kristin embraced Tubbo and offered up words of comfort, the buzzing crescendoed right next to his ear.

“Right, yeah,” Tubbo said. He punctuated his sentence with a yawn, big and wide as ever. 

Kristin’s sad smile perked up. “Tired?”

“A bit, yeah,” he said.

She released him, and Tubbo stumbled a bit out of the hug, earning yet another smile from Kristin’s bright face. “Why don’t you go rest up?” she asked. “I’m sure Tommy wouldn’t mind some company.”

Wilbur chuckled. As if Tommy wasn’t passed out, snoring for half the house to hear, right where Kristin had left him. Much like Kristin did, much like Tubbo did too, though, Wilbur took the escape from the heavy topic. 

He followed along, Phil and Techno right near him, as Kristin led Tubbo towards the couch he was calling his bed for the moment. The house was fairly silent, once again, as Tubbo sank into the cushions. 

They dispersed after that. 

Kristin left Tommy and Tubbo to sleep, off towards the stairs to the second floor—it was something she always did when she’d come over. 

Phil had told him, once, how she’d sit on the replacement old bed, right on the side he’d always used to sleep on, and talk. She’d take the picture frame from the dresser, the one of all four of them standing out in front of the house, from the day Phil had proposed, and she’d talk. Of course, she had no idea Phil was _there_ , but Phil listened as if she did. That was all Wilbur knew of their talks—Phil liked to keep them mostly to himself, and Wilbur didn’t see it fit to pry.

And so, he was left there with Techno at his side, watching over the two kids draped across their couches. Still, something itched from somewhere in the back of his head—a culmination of the annoyance at Techno’s behavior—how he'd been disinterested, of all things, in the emotional stakes digging into Wilbur’s head—and the presence of Kristin—someone Wilbur had appreciated in his life, a strong reminder of what had been, of what could have been.

Watching Tommy and Tubbo drift off into sleep, Wilbur huffed, a quiet laugh meant just for himself. It caught Techno’s gaze, but Wilbur ignored him, ignored the eyebrow raised in question.

Instead, he floated off. He was done with this, for now.

And so back upstairs he went, back up to his guitar, back to the same songs he'd been trying to play for the past five years. His fingers felt nothing, strumming against the strings.

The song was sweet, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha yes yes laying groundwork for Wilbur stuff,,,,,, which i definitely planned. Really though, I hope this part of his character doesn’t come out of nowhere because now that it's here I really like it!! It helps explain a lot of the stuff I have about his character in this story!! Woo!!! Character complexity!!!! I told you this has plot hehehe >:D That said though, next chapter we get back to a little bit of fluffy stuff, just as a breather for y’all, so rest assured! There will be a bit from this tacked on at the beginning and it might be sad but the rest is fun i promise ;)
> 
> Completely unrelated side note: should I tag this fic as slow burn? I’ve always thought slow burn was explicitly meant for romance, but… is it? Or does it just mean like, there’s a slow plot progression? Cause if so then yes this is slow burn (hehehe)
> 
> two more things: peep the spotify link i put in below,,, i like making it look pretty so i'm happy about it,, also i might come back and fix the ending of this chapter in a bit but rn i'm just anxious to get this out so hehe have it as it is

**Author's Note:**

> I plan to update once a week! The day is subject to change, though, as it depends on how my workload for the semester ends up :/
> 
> Comments feed the writing/editing demon, and they're much appreciated! If you like this fic, hate it, or otherwise want to yell at me, please share down below :D
> 
> My [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/catsmind?si=k9Q2TWxtQbqd61ImPHRaNg), if you wish to listen to it. I don't have a "writing playlist" per se, but I assure you I've listened to all of these playlists at some point while writing this so,,,, yeah take it if you wish.


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